Le Puy-en-Velay Off The Beaten Path

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A nice picnic place among giant bonsais

There are plenty of restaurants in le Puy, but a picnic in the countryside would make the kids happy and you can discover: 1) the wonderful ham, saucisson and cheese from Auvergne, 2) a strange place telling about recent social history of Auvergne, 3) a quiet nice, picnic spot not far from town, and then resume your visit.
La Pinatelle du Zouave, is firstly interesting by its name: Pinatelle is a small pine tree wood, and the Zouave (Picture 2), is a soldier from the French colonial army! (There is a famous Zouave statue in Paris at the Pont de l’Alma. . ).
The pinatelle is a small wood where pines have been “cultivated” for firewood (bois de boulange, wood for bakeries); special firewood for the bakers of the city, and the way the branches have been cut year after year gives that strange shape to the trees. Cutting the branches close to the trunk, creates after few strange shapes and torn trunks (Picture3).
The land had been bought by a Zouave in the 19th century and this place is the last one in the area showing the past activity of cultivating trees for the bakers to fire their ovens.
There are benches, overlooks, a small education trail, with lots of explanatory boards (example Picture 4), and a picnic here is quite a good rest, before going back to town. Kids appreciate a lot (but beware, the trees have resin, and clothes do not like that!), can run around, pick raspberries or blackberries, play on the education trail.
These trees are something strange (Picture5) and have been saved recently by voluntaries.
Ah, and on the trail are “pelles à pins”, just a play with the words: pelle à pain is the shovel the tool used by the baker to pull out the hot baked bread from the oven, pelle à pins refers to the pins, the pine trees.

Departemental road 590, direction Loudes, West of Le Puy, drive five kilometres, there are signs; after a long curve left, turn left a little road which climbs up a hill.
45°03’24”N ; 3°50’02”E on Google Earth

There are guided tours Tél. 04 71 57 31 96.