Laragne Area

Laragne is situated in South East France, roughly half way between Marseille and Grenoble. It benefits from a Provence climate with mostly dry sunny weather. One of France's best known Hang Gliding sites, Laragne-Chabre boasts exceptionally good flying conditions from April through to October. Well spaced ridges and valleys provide excellent potential for a variety of cross country flying tasks. Landing fields are abundant and valley winds are rarely a problem.

The origin of the name “Laragne” is obscure. It could be derived from the old Provençal word "aranha" (l’araignée in French), meaning "spider", and connected with the legend of a chateau bearing a coat of arms depicting a spider.  Historically, the area surrounding the Monteglin church, close to the landing field at Camping Monteglin, was the more significant community.  But in the 17th century, with the building of the Chateau in the centre of the town, Laragne itself grew in importance.

The town of Laragne and the nearby villages of Ribiers, Orpierre and Barret sur Meouge, offer a warm welcome, good local facilities and many accommodation choices. Communications are reasonably good with regular bus and train services from the North and South and a motorway link (A51) within 10km. The larger towns of Gap and Sisteron are close by with more extensive shopping, sports and commercial facilities.

The competition headquarters will be in the heart of Laragne town, close to bars, restaurants, shops and the tourist office. For more detailed information on what Laragne has to offer, see: www.ot-laragne.fr
The town itself has a small central square – Place de la Fontaine – with limited parking, but surrounded by shops, cafes and bars.  The large town square – Place des Aires – close to the competition Headquarters (Salle des Fetes) has more extensive parking, except on Thursday mornings, when the colourful Provencal market takes over. 

Despite being only a small town of 3500 people, most major facilities and services are available, including two supermarkets, banks, post office, pharmacies, garage/car repair shops, wine shop and hardware stores.  Laragne has its own cheese maker (fromagerie) producing tasty cheeses from local milk from cows, sheep and goats.  There’s even an ‘epicerie’ specialising in organic produce and health products.
The area is well served for local cheese, particularly goats’ milk cheese (chevre), with many small farms well established nearby.  Being on the edge of Provence, lavender is another significant industry, particularly around the hillside villages around the Montagne de Chabre, with distilleries in Ribiers and Laborel.  And where there’s lavender, there’s honey!  Producers are located in many of the villages around Laragne.  The Thursday market is a great place for shopping for local produce.

Massive irrigation of the Durance and Buech valleys has enabled the region to become one of France’s most important fruit growing areas.  Apples are the most prevalent, but pears, plums, cherries, peaches and apricots are also grown locally.  The netted orchards (protection from hailstones) are a familiar site to HG pilots flying over the area.

Although the orchards replaced the traditional vineyards in this area of France, there are still a couple of local vineyards in operation in the Hautes-Alpes department.  But of course, we are only a couple of hours drive from the popular wine areas of Luberon, Ventoux and the massive, Cotes du Rhone.  Just to the north of Aspres, is the Diois area around the town of Die (pronounced Dee), famous for a sparkling wine, like champagne, called Clairette de Die.

Hang gliding and paragliding are not the only sports in the area, of course.  There are many small airfields around offering gliding, ULMs/Microlights and parachuting activities.  Water sports are abundant on the lakes and fast flowing rivers, including canoeing, white water rafting, windsurfing, sailing and kite surfing.  There are several famous rock climbing sites in the area, at Orpierre, Ceuse and Sigottier.  Via Ferrata are located at La Motte du Caire and Devoluy.  Then there is horse riding, mountain biking, road biking, hiking and a host of other sports available.

Click to see a Google Map