Welcome to La Florette a taste of the riviera's lifestyle...
ABOUT BIOT
Biot is a very picturesque and very popular medieval village that's actually about 2500 years old. It sits on a hilltop only 4 km from the Mediterranean beaches between Antibes and Nice. Although the village gets crowded with tourists during the summer, it retains much of its natural charm and its feeling of antiquity, and is very active year-round.
The medieval village of Biot, France is graced with a number of excellent restaurants and lovely places to dine. You’ll find amazing French fare here and other regional delights, such as crepes. Biot is a truly magical and special place that you’ll enjoy visiting. Many visitors enjoy using Biot as a base by which to explore the nearby areas of Juan les Pins and Antibes. Biot makes a good base for exploring, yet it has many fine restaurants and things to explore in its own right.
Due to the importance and quality of its deposits of clay and stone oven, Biot became the largest manufacturing center Mediterranean of jars production. In the mid-17th century, it counted about forty pottery makers. Their huge production was widely exported throughout the Mediterranean and the Americas. The museum sheltered a large collection of those jars whose production runs from 16th to 19th centuries. Gradually, pottery and ceramics of Biot moved into utilitarian and decorative varieties.
A family company: a unique know-how The glass tradition in Provence dates back thousands of years but in Biot everything began in 1956, the year in which La Verrerie de Biot created the bubble glass, mastering the bubble and imprisoning it between two layers of glass to transform a defect (a bubble) into a feature of quality: bubbled glass. The Lechaczynski family took up the torch of the bubbled glass traditions in 1973 and today is still carrying the standard of art crafts high now.
Biot village
First record, 12th century Buzot,
Celto-Ligurian: The main oppidum of the Oxybiens was located here, the nearest secure site to the Ligurian port (now the Parc de Vaugrenier).
Gallo-Roman: The Romans were here from 154 BC. and annexed the village in 42 BC. when they took control of the entire coastal region. Several vestiges remain of the Roman presence, including inscriptions, steles and a mausoleum at the "Chèvre d'Or".
Medieval: Biot belonged to the Count of Provence until 1209 when he gave it to the Templiers. From 1312, the Bishops of Grasse shared rule with the Hospitalers de St. Jean de Jerusalem, who took over when the Templiers "fell". The village was nearly wiped out by the plague at the end of the 14th century. In the middle of the 15th century Biot was fortified and repopulated.
Biot is an enchanting hilltop village located about 20km from Nice and 4km from the coast. Biot was once an important pottery-manufacturing centre specialising in huge oil and wine containers. Metal containers brought an end to this industry, but Biot is still renowned for its artisan products.
Biot is a gorgeous village for a stroll, but its proximity to the coast means that it can get busy in the summer months. The lovely old square, Place des Arcades, welcomes the Provencal Market every Tuesday and is home to Les Arcades, the oldest restaurant in Biot. The restaurant is fine if you want to enjoy a glass of wine in the square or sample some traditional provencal fare, but nearby restaurants Les Terraillers and Le Jarrier Club Lounge get better reviews. In fact, Les Terraillers has been described as the nicest place to eat on the Cote d’Azur.
If you’d rather picnic, a top spot is the Jardin Férédéric Mistral on Chemin des Roses. The garden has benches and shaded areas for you to relax and assemble your jambon-fromage baguettes.
Biot has a rich artistic heritage. Just walking around the cobblestoned streets, you’ll find yourself admiring the detail in the doorways, vaults, stairwells and stonework. At the foot of the village is a glass factory where you can watch glass blowers at work. On Chemin du Val de Pomme, the Musée Fernand Léger has a display of paintings, mosaics, ceramics and stained-glass-windows. An impressive mosaic decorates the museum’s entranceway.
The ancient history
It seems that Biot is an ancient volcano, or rather the village is located near a volcano, when we consider the fact that this region of the Southern Alps is actually an ancient tectonic reef. In addition to this, before the construction of habitats, volcanic rocks were discovered in the ground locally.
There are many traces around the village, which show signs of an occupation since Prehistoric time. After this there followed a long period during which Celto-Ligurian (Oxybians and Deceates) tribes inhabited the region. These tribes were in conflict with town of Antipolis (Antibes) which had a Greek background, and they asked for help from Rome. The Ligurians were defeated in 154 BC by the Romans who then settled gradually on the present site of the old village. They occupied this site for five centuries, leaving monuments and inscriptions still visible today.
The medieval age
he time between the end of the Roman domination and the beginning of Medieval age is little known.
In 1209, the Earl of Provence who own the rights on the Biot territory donated it to the Knight Templars” for his soul’s and his parents’ souls salvation”? At that time, the village consisted of the ”Arcaded Square” (“Place aux Arcades”), the church and a few houses. The Knight Templars either bought or were donated the lands surrounding the village, and thus unified the Biot territory. Following the eradication of the Knight Templars, the Biot territory was entrusted to both the Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem (became the Malta Knights in 1530) and to the Bishop of Grasse.This situation lasted until the French Revolution.
An end to peace and the repopulation process
The villagers lived in peace and life became organized until both the war of Succession of Queen Jeanne of Provence, pillaging gangs and the Black Plague decimated the village. Left abandoned, Biot and its church were devastated in 1387 and the village became inhabited by robbers and thieves. This situation changed in 1470, when King René encouraged around fifty families from the Oneglia Valley (an area located in Italy between Genoa and Ventimiglia) to come and settle here, in favorable conditions. Life started again and Biot became a prosperous place as it is remains today.
Life from 16th to 19th century and the incredible growth of pottery
The village’s perimeter extended and during 16th and 17th centuries, crops and the making of pottery enriched the villagers lives. In 1707 and 1746 two invasions partially destroyed the village and crops were devastated.
From the 16th century, jar making had developed in Biot making the village an important centre of the pottery industry.
Nevertheless, in the 19th century, pottery related activity like the extraction and carving of kiln stone declined.
The 20 century to the present
In the early 20th century the decline of pottery industry increased. Biot focused on agriculture, wine growing and horticulture mainly that declined as well around the 1960s, meanwhile a new activity was to arise. The Sophia Antipolis business park, European leading technological community, was created in 1970. It lies mainly in Biot. The INRA (National Institute for Agronomic Research) Research centre, the INRIA (National Institute for Data Processing and Automation Research), the CNRS (National Scientific Research Centre), the Nice Sophia Antipolis University Research Center are based in Biot side by side with Companies involved in advanced technology. As Biot developed, small village suburbs appeared. Simultaneously, Art and Artistic crafts developed. Léger, Peynet, and many others settled in Biot and made it famous. In 1956, Eloi Monod founded the biot glass-factory and its reputed “bubble-glass”. Then, Biot became a renowned centre for arts and crafts.