Evol

Today's walk started in Olette and took in the mountain villages of Evol and Oreilla. The hamlet of Evol is attached to the village of Olette and is overlooked by the old fortress of the Viscounts of So and the steeple of its Romanesque church. It is listed 'un des plus beaux villages de France.' The village still has a mountain feel to it today because of the pasturing and the houses with their shale walls and stone-slab roofs, the "lauze" slabs for which used to be cut in winter by the inhabitants. The walk also took in the hamlet of Oreilla which is a 'village martyr' of the First World War. It has the dubious distinction of having the highest losses of any village in France proportional to the size of the population. Eighteen died representing 13.4% of the population. The village never recovered from this.

Large you can just see the fortified church and castle on the left.