Welcome to Rioclar campsite!

Formerly, the inhabitants of the Ubaye valley used to know how to resist the long winters and how to feed everybody: a part of the family stayed at the farm, for taking care of the cattle, in the house; they wove fabrics made of wool or hemp. The others used to leave the farm and became shepherds conducting the herds to wintering areas in the southern plains, teachers (traditionally, people had a good education in the valley), and peddlers.

They were specialized in selling textiles, either locally produced or finer ones bought in factories. They plied roads in Piedmont, in southern Provence, in the Rhone valley, the Saone and Flanders. When the warm season returned, they brought their earnings back to the villages ... and their arms for the summer work.

Open forever to trade and to exchanges, the economy of the Valley relied for a long time on the textile industry combining wool manufacturing and silk spinning. The inhabitants of the Ubaye valley, very early trained in "the art of being a trader", left the Valley to sell their production of silks and linens in Provence, Dauphiné, Piedmont, Flanders ...

In the mid-nineteenth century, permanent emigration replaced seasonal emigration and led the entrepreneurs of the Valley to the Americas; at first in Louisiana of French tradition, then to Mexico where Jacques Arnaud (1781 - 1828) established a textile business around 1818 - 1820 associated with his brothers Dominique and Marc-Antoine, paving the silk route to Mexico. Privileged destination since the Second Empire, Mexico concentrated the largest community of emigrants from Ubaye, called the Barcelonnettes that gave birth to several generations of manufacturers, traders and bankers, who will be the "preferred partners"(John Meyer) of the young republic of the United States of Mexico between 1870 and 1910.

Spread over half a century (1880 - 1930), the construction of the villas of Barcelonnette and Jausiers clusters around fifty buildings which helped create a new urbanism, close to that of contemporary spa towns, where, in the same way, parks and gardens outweigh the constructions. The result is a spirit and a kind of resort that will characterize the emergence of this new architecture, more usual on the Mediterranean coast and on the seaside resorts of the Atlantic coast.

The sponsors are all children of the country, returning after long years of emigration and who all have been very successful in the textile and trading industry. Thus, after having been for a long time at the forefront of good taste and modernity, they concentrated on building a modern villa where they could spend the summer before leaving for the sea side as soon as it gets cold. Alexandre Reynaud, father of Paul Reynaud, French statesman (1878 - 1966), was one of the first persons who builds an elegant villa. Its perfect proportions and symmetry remind of the great classical mansions of the historic centre of Barcelonnette.

The history and heritage of the Ubaye valley lead to the inevitable discovery of the fortifications. This rich military history is due to the geographical location of the Valley, crossroads between Piedmont, Savoy and Provence. The major campaigns of fortifications modernized the valley and its inhabitants’ lives: roads have been opened (Cayolle pass...), new means of communication, electrification.

Vauban was the first to mark the landscape by building forts (St. Vincent les Forts), when Ubaye still belonged to Savoy.This mountain fortress was completed around 1880 by a set of constructions: the fortresses of Chaudon, Châtelard (La Condamine) and the Col Bas in Dormillouse (the Lauzet).

After the French occupation of Italy during the 19th century, the fortress of Viraysse (Larche), the highest in France (2772 m) and the fort of Tournoux (La Condamine) were erected. This last one is a real wall, gradually developing up to a level difference of 900 m allowing the observation of the passages between the Italian valley of the Stura and the pass of Vars. Finally, around 1930, the Maginot Line completed the fortifications. In Meyronnes, the constuction works of low and high Saint-Ours and of Roche-la-Croix, oriented towards the pass of Larche, are exemplary of the construction techniques of those days.