Thorame-Haute

Overview

A large high-valley commune, the rail gateway to the Haut Verdon thanks to its station on the train des Pignes.

Where to stay in Thorame-Haute

Compare and book on the major platforms. Hotels, campsites and gîtes in Thorame-Haute will soon have their verified listing on LiveVerdon.

Services & shops in Thorame-Haute

EV charging — in the village: D52 (2 points), network eborn. See the map of Verdon charging points →

What to see, what to do

Thorame-Haute station

Located at Thorame-Haute-Gare, about 7 km south of the main village, on the Nice-Digne line of the Chemins de fer de Provence (the train des Pignes). It is the highest station on the line and the only one in the Haut Verdon, the classic starting point for reaching the resorts of the valley.

La Colle-Saint-Michel

A former independent commune, today a hamlet of Thorame-Haute on the Serpégier plateau, at around 1,430 m. The col of the same name links the Verdon basin to that of the Vaïre; the railway crosses it through the La Colle-Saint-Michel tunnel, about 3.5 km long.

Peyresq

A former commune attached to Thorame-Haute in 1974, a mountain village perched at around 1,525 m on a remarkable rocky site, restored since the 1960s and reached by the departmental road 32 from La Colle-Saint-Michel. The railway halt that bears its name, down in the valley beside the Vaïre, has no road access and is reached on foot (about 2 hours).

Chapel of Notre-Dame de la Fleur

A chapel from the 1930s-1940s, the site of a traditional pilgrimage on Whit Monday.

Parish church

Rebuilt between 1598 and 1603 after the destruction of the Wars of Religion.

Rural chapels

Several old chapels scattered across the area (Saint-Roch, Saint-André, Saint-Louis, Notre-Dame du Serret), evidence of local devotion and of the plague episodes.

History of Thorame-Haute

The Thorame area corresponds to the ancient Eturamina, a city mentioned as early as the 5th century in the councils of the region and having its own bishop at the time. The name changed over the centuries — Toramena in 1009, Toramine in 1035 — and the distinction between Thorame-Haute and Thorame-Basse became fixed at the beginning of the 13th century. Attached to the viguerie of Castellane in 1342, the community suffered the depredations of Raymond de Turenne in 1390 before being annexed to France in 1486. The Wars of Religion and the plague epidemics (1630, 1720) marked the following centuries. In the 19th century the village reached its population peak around 1840 (about 830 inhabitants) and lived from a small cloth industry and from its well-known cheese, the tomme de Thorame. The arrival of the railway in the early 20th century and, in 1974, the merger with Saint-Michel-Peyresq shaped the present commune. During the Second World War, the local Resistance made its mark in particular around the bridges in the valley.

Getting to Thorame-Haute

• Nearest train station: Gare de Thorame-Haute, sur la commune même (train des Pignes, ligne Nice-Digne)