Discovery tour of Saint Restitut

Saint-Restitut is a village built out of stone on a rocky promontory overlooking the plain Des Paluds. It was once inhabited by the ‘Tricastini’. The history of the village revolves mainly around the mining of the famous local white stone and its patron Saint Restitut, who, according to the Gospel, was born blind. His relics are said to be in the funerary tower adjoining the church. The windy lanes lined with the quarrymen’s houses, built alongside their masters’ mansions, lead the way to the tower house and the romanesque church adjacent to the funerary tower. Those are all listed buildings. Once you have stepped through the gate called ‘Porte Rose’, walk onto Chemin du Mistral towards the chapel of Saint Sépulcre and the stone ‘sentinels’ - a contemporary memorial to quarry workers. The trails to the white stone quarries still bear the marks of the heavy carts transporting blocks of stone. Quarry workers endured this hard life from time immemorial to give builders enough stone to build cathedrals in the Middle Ages, as well as some more recent buildings.

The funerary tower built over his tomb in the 11th century was joined a century later by the beautiful Romanesque church. Take the time to wander through the narrow streets and admire the hexagonal chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, built outside the ramparts in the 16th century, as well as the contemporary work "Les Sentinelles", made up of limestone blocks in homage to the quarrymen who made the village famous.
The name Saint-Restitut was preceded by the locality of Longueville, then Villa Santi Restituti, then Restitut la montagne during the French Revolution.