These cliffs were made for carvin'

A small mountain range called Chaîne des Alpilles separates St. Remy de Provence from Les Baux and extends east, presumably to the Alps. These mountains appear in several Van Gogh paintings that were done while he was convalescing in town.

Turns out that they make for good perspiration as well as inspiration as they have been extensively quarried for centuries. The Boys (as we are known) struck out one hot afternoon to explore local ruins and stumbled, unknowningly, into one of these quarries (La Pierre de Glanum).
At first we thought we could come across some ancient dwellings.



But as we explored further, it became clear that it was a huge quarry, dug into mountain.



As we descended into the quarry, it got considerably cooler, to the point where we could see our breath! This must have provided considerable relief to the stone cutters from the "chaude" of southern France.

I began to wonder why these folks had dug caves rather than striping away the mountain, until I saw this, which I can only assume is a lone pillar, left after digging stone from all around it. For scale, those are large olive trees at its base, so it is a good 100 feet tall.

Oh, by the way, the quarry shut down on Christmas, 1726!