An Irishwoman’s Diary on young ‘neopaysans’ going ‘bio’ on top of the French Alps

Sunday in the commune of La Brigue is a trip to the Middle Ages. We’re inside a time capsule. My host is an Irish beekeeper, and my bedroom is all sharp angles and huge stone fireplace.

Right angles are scarce in this unsung jewel of the French Alps, an hour east of Nice. My yellow casements open onto alleys so skinny neighbours touch across balconies. A plaque over a doorway commemorates a long-ago Jewish ghetto.

Once a trading stop on the Route de Sel, this community thrived from Paleolithic days to the second World War, when suddenly it became French and “rural exodus” drained it. Truth is, La Brigue was Italian until the demise of Mussolini, who’d built its scenic railway (“Chemin des Merveilles”) and a villa-fortress for his mistress.

Old-timers still meet at the Bar des Platanes in the marketplace, speaking Brigasque dialect. Like its war memorial in Italian, and ice cream and cappuccinos at the end of the brand-new border tunnel half an hour away (blocked last year by angry shepherds with their flocks), the commune retains a faintly schizoid feel.

In the market, "neo-paysans", or back-to-the-landers, peddle raspberries, jams, honey, hats from the boutique, Julie's nougat, Kirsten's cheeses. Sundays have been like this since the dawn of time. Population is 650 and (gradually) on the rise.

We grab Remy’s fruit, Philippe’s eggs and neighbourly invitations. La Brigue’s blow-ins are shepherds, farmers, beekeepers: sociable, hardworking, multinational, united in a passion for “bio” or organic, and hatred of GM food – and wolves. Some are ex-“Woofers” or organic growers. The government supplies land and houses to the qualified.

But if it weren't for their T-shirts, they could be from Marcel Pagnol's Jean de Florette.

A brilliant museum displays La Brigue’s agricultural heyday, including a beekeeping section with ingenious glass-fronted “Find The Queen” hive. Exemplary!

The most amazing sight is five kilometres above town. Notre Dame des Sources is a 15th-century chapel, rebuilt where streams sprang from bare rock after earthquakes razed an earlier chapel.

Inside, frescoes of the Passion and Last Judgment give you a piercing close-up of the medieval mind. Finding these in time’s pocket up a mountainside is shocking.

They’re masterpieces by 15th-century Italian Giovannis, Canavesio and Baleison. Canavesio’s vision of the devil torn from Judas Iscariot still horrifies, while Baleison’s childlike Madonna with baby is enchanting.

The vivid and violent figures clash with the Eden-like surroundings. Half the wall behind the altar has been erased. It was from the Apocrypha.

Higher up, we drop in on Ana’s polytunnels and view that massive pizza oven in her yard, tailor-made for events. Higher still, we share Remy and Ann’s courgette risotto and view a cold room where they’re making sorbets. “I like picking currants best,” says Ann, a pretty Niçoise with scratches to prove it.

Another clamber, and we reach Philippe’s wife Alison and baby Capeline and their 12 sheepdogs, next to the huge barn where 200 sheep spend winter. Right now Philippe’s taking sheep up summer pastures daily, “A daily mini-transhumance,” explains Alison. Hence, dogs.

But hello, 12? They surge around us outside like noisy deep-pile carpeting. With wolves a permanent flashpoint, shepherds need their dogs ferocious.

Shepherdly wisdom has it that wolves are a) capable of tearing out the throat of a 50-pound lamb; and b) aren’t the French wolves introduced by the government’s “Plan Loup” to Parc Mercantour.

“Sheep flocks are their fast-food restaurants. Young ones indulge in food fights, mauling 30 animals in frenzied killing sprees.”

These wolves are leaner, probably Italian (wearing Armani, carrying man purses?). Philippe’s seen one. “It was gray: Italian.”

Alison discreetly admits that she doesn’t mind wolves and has enough dogs.

One shepherd was so maddened when his donkey was savaged that he tied a cyanide capsule to the throat of a lamb and let it loose in the forest. It was fair revenge, he said, since a mauled animal is traumatised and cannot be saved.

We pass the donkey’s jawbone on the trail down. Poor Anka.

Beekeeping has its own “transhumance”, when bees need to reach lavender and beekeepers trek hives uphill by moonlight. They endure long, worrisome vigils if bees stray.

Shepherds also face lonely nights and it takes a certain breed of rugged; but they share a robust social side.

Seven invited us to lunch with Pétanque on the mountainside – near an abandoned village, where terraces were once farmed.

A dining bower, shelves groaning with bottles, and a sleeping platform with panoramas await us, along with several children. They’re swapping tales in five languages over fried goat and bowls of wild berries. Passing bottles include Havana Club Gold.

“Wolves, oh, sure I’ve seen them,” laughs Kirsten, a legend for his cheeses.

Some believe the name “La Brigue” derives from the word “brigands” with whom they share bravado, and I don’t disillusion them.

Three rums later, I joked to one that I’d been warned by my mother to never sleep with a shepherd. Ever. He looked grave.

“I see you’ve prejudged us too, Madame.” My mother said no such thing, but I didn’t disillusion him either.