🏢 About the local organisation
The workcamp will take place in the village of Maurs or Maurs-la-Jolie (Maurs the beautiful), one of the oldest villages of the French department of Cantal. You will be welcomed right in the heart of this medieval village and will discover its rich cultural and heritage legacy. You will help to enhance the village’s built heritage helping to restore an old scale and a dry-stones wall.
💼 What the programme involves
The public scale was once used to weigh animals. It is composed of a 2 exterior pans (wood platforms surrounded by iron barriers on which animals climbed on to be weighed) located on both sides of a little building. The platforms are connected to a mechanism inside the building that indicates the animal’s weight. You will participate in the restoration of external elements and organize the little building’s interior (it currently serves as a storeroom for the village’s technical service).
You will learn how to renovate a building: sand external iron barriers, replace window panes, coat the internal walls. Also, you will imagine a work situation with a mannequin and lighting inside the building to show tourists how the scale was used. Thanks to your work, visitors will be able to appreciate this typical piece of heritage of Maurs.
You will also have to restore a dry-stone wall: remove invasive plants and rearrange the stones. You will learn how to place the stones to give back its beauty and stability to the wall. You may also learn how to grout the stones.
You will be supervised by municipal agents who will be happy to share their knowledge with you. You will work 4 to 5 hours a day. You will walk to the workplace located 1km away from the accommodation site.
🏠 Accommodation on site
You will be accommodated in tents on the village’s campsite. A group pitch will be reserved for you with access to the campsite’s sanitary block and to a room with a fitted kitchen in the campsite’s main building. This room can be used to take meals and gather the group for collective activities. The campsite is located on the edge of the river Rance. It is right next to the football field to which you’ll have access and 1km from the village centre.
📍 About the location
Maurs is a village of 2252 inhabitants and is located at the Cantal, Aveyron and Lot French departments’ borders. Maurs organizes every Thursday morning one of the most beautiful French market where you will find regional products. Numerous stores can be found in Maurs: restaurants, bakeries, butcher’s shop, grocery stores.
As an old medieval village, Maurs kept the round shape of the old battlement. While walking through the village, you will discover a rich heritage legacy: Abbatial church Saint-Césaire, half-timbered houses, soleilhos(old opened granaries where fruits dried, mostly nuts), old fortifications. You will also have the opportunity to visit the Domaine du Fau. Once a mill, the building has been preserved. On the edge of its pond, you could relax on the picnic area or do sports on the fitness circuit. You will attend to various activities: the Pleins feux sur le Fau night with fireworks, the Wheat Fair at the Domaine du Fau where you will learn how to make bread and horse riding. You could also relax at the campsite’s pool.
Surrounding Maurs, the botanical trail of Saint-Etienne-de-Maurs will awaken your senses. To visit, 3 villages certified Most Beautiful Villages of France: Capdenac, Cardaillac and Conques, stage on the Santiago de Compostela way with its Romanesque abbey. At Figeac, you will discover medieval houses and urban palaces, you could also swim at the lake.
For those who like hiking, various routes are accessible from Maurs. Also to be discovered: The Mont of Cantal, largest stratovolcano of Europe located in the Regional Park of Auvergne Volcanoes and also the river Lot Valley and its green and preserved landscapes.
