Carrières de Bibémus

The Carrières de Bibémus are defined by their dramatic, jagged walls of ocher-yellow sandstone. These stone quarries, which sit on a high plateau a few miles east of the center of Aix-en-Provence, provided the building material for many of the city’s historic mansions and monuments from the Roman era until the end of the nineteenth century. The stone itself is a porous molasse, a feature that reportedly led the Romans to name the site Bibémus, from the Latin verb for to drink.