Saint-Martin-Vésubie is preparing for its annual Fête du Pain, running from Friday, July 31 through Sunday, August 2, a tradition marking the first weekend of August in the Vésubie valley village.
The festival centres on the village's communal oven, where around 500kg of bread is baked and sold across the weekend alongside pizzas and pissaladière. Visitors can also watch demonstrations of trades once common to rural Alpine life, including wheat threshing, traditional sheep shearing, hand milking, cheesemaking and lavender distillation, alongside an artisan market, pony rides and an animal parade. The festival runs largely free of charge, with tastings and purchases available on site.
The event forms part of a wider calendar of traditional gatherings that mark the seasons in Saint-Martin-Vésubie, a mountain village at the gateway to the Mercantour National Park, alongside its February carnival and August traversado.