The Village des Bories dry-stone huts

Down a track off the D2 below the village, the Village des Bories is a restored hamlet of about twenty dry-stone huts: corbelled domes and vaults built from flat limestone slabs stacked without a drop of mortar, with sheepfolds, bread ovens and low walls between them. The technique is prehistoric in origin and the surviving buildings are mostly a few centuries old.

Photographically it is a set with no modern element in it at all. Bare stone, scrub, sky — that is the palette, and it means high-contrast graphic frames rather than pretty ones. Doorways make natural apertures for a portrait, the curved walls catch raking light beautifully, and a couple standing between two domes reads as scale in a landscape that otherwise gives none.

The stone is pale and the site is open, so the middle of the day is brutal and flat. First and last light are the only really good windows: low sun brings out every course of stacked slab and throws the shadows that give the domes their shape. Spring and autumn add green and flowering scrub; midsummer bleaches everything.

Practical: it is ticketed with fixed opening hours that vary by season — check the day's times, and be aware it can close in bad weather or for maintenance. The paths are rough and stony, the site is entirely unshaded, and there is no shelter if the mistral is up. Do not climb on the structures: they are held together by gravity and friction alone, and a dislodged slab is real damage.