Chemin de la Croix Bastide in Bort-les-Orgues

Departure from the Champ de Foire car park.

(S/E) Turn right onto Boulevard de la Convention, then Boulevard du Docteur Teyssier and Boulevard de la Nation. Turn left onto Boulevard Voltaire. At the end, turn right and cross the Dordogne via the bridge. At the end of the bridge, turn left onto Avenue de la Gare.

(1) Immediately after the shop (closed), turn right onto the alleyway that goes up towards the railway line. Cross it and continue straight ahead. At the junction with Boulevard du Général Leclerc, turn left.

(2) About thirty metres further on, turn right onto the path towards Croix Bastide (signposted). Follow this path to the transmitter. Leave a path on the right as you go uphill. At the transmitter, the path leads to a track which you should take on the left.

(3) A few hundred metres further on, a path branches off to the left towards Croix Bastide (large white cross). Signpost. Croix Bastide is about a hundred metres away. From the foot of Croix Bastide, there is a beautiful view of the town and the valley with a lovely glimpse of the rock formations overlooking the town (a great spot for a picnic). Retrace your steps.

(3) Turn left onto Chemin de la Bastide, which climbs slightly.

(4) At the crossroads, turn onto the road on the right which descends towards Bort-les-Orgues (no entry for non-residents). This road is Rue de la Bastide.

(5) Turn right onto Rue du Bouchet, leaving Avenue Georges Clemenceau on your left, which is twenty metres away. Follow Rue du Bouchet until it overlooks the railway line.

Cross the railway line at the same crossing as on the way there (crossing without level crossing). Access is possible either by crossing a few steps on the left-hand side of the street or by taking a path on the left about fifty metres further on. Take the lane downhill towards Avenue de la Gare.

(1) At the junction with this avenue, turn left until you reach the roundabout and turn right to cross the Dordogne river via the bridge. At the end of the bridge, take Rue de Paris opposite, heading towards the Town Hall.
On this square, stay on the right-hand side and continue along Rue de Paris until you reach Place du Champ de Foire (S/E).

This walk is of moderate difficulty due to the fairly significant elevation gain over a short distance. You will need to wear suitable footwear to navigate the uphill path without difficulty due to its slope, numerous stones and roots.

Picnics can be enjoyed next to the Croix Bastide: beautiful panoramic view of the Bort organ pipes.

Parking is easy in the Champ de Foire car park. Toilet facilities are available at the top of the car park.

Bort borrows its magnificent landscapes from Auvergne

The town is located on a coal seam dating back to the Palaeozoic era. The upheavals of the Alpine orogeny broke up the Massif Central and created the tectonic fault that runs through the area, giving rise to the volcanoes or puys.

The Puy de Bort has an altitude of 860 metres and is a trigonometric point on the Meridian route.

The Orgues de Bort stretch for two kilometres and rise to a height of 80 metres. The Orgues, formed from a phonolite flow from the Cantal, majestically dominate the town nestled at their foot at an altitude of 430 metres.

From the top of the Orgues, visitors marvel at the exceptional view they offer over Auvergne and Limousin.

The view encompasses a vast panorama: the imposing Massif du Sancy, the Monts du Cantal, the Plateau de l'Artense (or "land of stones"), and the splendid glacial valleys with their wide, flat bottoms and steep slopes.
(Excerpt from the Bort-les-Orgues town hall website).

Origins
The commune was called Bort and took the name Bort-les-Orgues in 1919. At the time of Julius Caesar, the region was populated by the Lemovices tribe, whose name is the origin of the names Limousin and Limoges. After being under the control of the Visigoths, Limousin was recovered by the Frankish kings in the 7th century. In the 12th century, Limousin briefly came under English rule. In 1889, the town of Bourganeuf was the first in France to benefit from electricity. The Limousin region was officially created in 1972.

Bort borrows its magnificent landscapes from Auvergne. The town is located on a coal seam dating back to the Palaeozoic era. At an altitude of 860 metres, stretching two kilometres in length and 80 metres in height, the organ pipes of uncertain age, formed from a phonolite flow from Cantal, majestically dominate the town nestled at their foot (430 m). The view encompasses a vast panorama: the imposing Sancy massif, the gigantic Cantal massif, the Artense plateau or "land of stones", and the splendid glacial valleys with their wide, flat bottoms and steep slopes.

Bort's motto is: "Extremis finibus Lemovicensium et Arvernorum" (at the borders of the Limousin and Arvernian territories). The Romans, victors over the Gauls, built a road between Clermont-Ferrand and Limoges that passed through Bort.

The Christian order replaced the Roman order and left a string of superb Romanesque churches along the Dordogne. The Benedictines created a priory in the 10th century. The most famous of them, Pierre de Balzac (late 15th century), enlarged the church in Bort, built a bridge over the Dordogne and installed a clock. As a result, the church in Bort, built between the 12th and 15th centuries, combines Romanesque and Gothic styles. It is dedicated to Saint Germain, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Saint Remède, Bishop of Gap. The relics of these two prelates are said to have been brought back from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade (1204). Among the Crusaders were undoubtedly two knights from the illustrious Bort/Lestrange family, who in 1370 abandoned their Château de Ribeyrolle for that of Pierrefitte.

Bort was slow to emancipate itself from the authority of its priors: consular institutions were only established at the end of the Middle Ages. The inhabitants obtained the right to build fortifications from Charles VII, which was undertaken in 1438. With peace restored, activities resumed; castles were built, such as Pierrefitte, which still has a medieval appearance, and Val, heralding the Renaissance. The Wars of Religion bloodied the region in the 16th century; Bort was visited by the Huguenots and undoubtedly paid a ransom to avoid pillaging (1569).

Modern era
In the year XI, Bort merged with Saint-Thomas, which until then had been located in the department of Cantal.

Bort, which was part of the diocese of Limoges until 1801, benefited from the generosity of Intendant Turgot, who built a road connecting it directly to the capital of Limousin (late 18th century).

At that time, the markets prospered. Traditionally a commercial town, Bort was transformed into a manufacturing town in the 19th century. Of course, manufacturing was not a new activity. As early as the 14th century, clog makers took advantage of the abundance of forests to make galoshes. In the 13th century, wine-producing regions, which were major consumers of barrels and casks, sourced their wood from Haute Corrèze, with the Dordogne transporting numerous loads of logs. Three activities in particular employed a large workforce: hat-making (the Mègemond brothers' company employed 400 people around 1890), silk reeling at La Cascade (700 women worked there at the end of the Second Empire) and leather. For centuries, small tanners in Bort soaked their hides in the Dordogne. They were then victims of industrial concentration, which ensured the rise of the Tanneries de Bort in the 20th century. In 1932, a leather goods company, S.O.C.O., completed Bort's transformation into a "leather city". A textile manufacturing company, established in the 1970s, also provided many jobs until recent years (the Bidermann group had a production site in the town). This flourishing industrial activity led to an increase in the population of Bort, which settled along the main transport routes (the station district, for example).

At the end of the 20th century, a major effort was made to develop a tourist centre around the reservoir (campsite, lodges, swimming pool, jetties), in conjunction with the municipality of Lanobre in the Cantal, whose population and activity have grown due to its proximity to Bort.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Bort has not found a sufficient economic activity to compensate for its deindustrialisation.

Economy
The municipality derives its income from the nearby dam and tourism linked to the reservoir.

Tanneries, of which Le Tanneur is the last remaining representative, were once the town's main industry.

The municipality is home to a production site belonging to the environmental division of the Plastic Omnium group.

Places and monuments
Château de Val.
The old 19th-century market halls. They have been listed as historic monuments since 25 March 1965.
The Bort-les-Orgues dam, a concrete arch dam.
The Château de Val, rising above one of the banks of the dam's reservoir, is located in the municipality of Lanobre in the Cantal department, but has been owned by the municipality of Bort-les-Orgues since the dam was built.
The phonolite volcanic massif in the shape of organ pipes, similar to basalt columns.
The Saut de la Saule, impressive canyons on the Rhue, upstream from the railway bridge spanning this river.