valley of dinosaurs

The river Aude's Haute Vallée is the land of Dinosaures; rocks deposited during the latest part of the Crustacean period (75 to 65 million years)ago have yielded abundant bones and eggs of dinosaurs.

The first museum solely dedicated to dinosaurs in Europe exhibits an unique collection of dinosaurs from 70 million years; skeletons, reconstructions,a paleontological workshop and a laboratory may be visited. The county of Esperaza - its « haute vallée » is Europe's largest archaeological dig for dinosaurs, and large scale palaentological excavations have been carried out near Esperaza since 1989. In August 2001 scientists discovered the complete skeleton of a 72 million year old herbivorous Ampelosaurusatacis.

This best preserved skeleton ever excavated in France is about 12 meters long and nearly two and a half meters high; it is assumed that young Eva's weight once amounted to approx. 15 tons. This was a surprising excavation: the lady was the first Titanosaur ever discovered in Europe.

The museum exhibits the fascinating reconstruction of a Rhabdodon, a 5 m long Dinosaure, which had been excavated some years ago in the high valley of the Aude. In this museum children may look for fossils themselves, just as the paentologist do; the professionals will teach the children about their findings.

Musée des Dinosaures et Chantier de Fouilles
Avenue de la Gare
F-11300 Esperaza
Fon: +33-(0)46874-2688
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The village of Esperaza is a small, typical French town; hard to imagine that it had once had been centre of the Visigotes and Carolingians. Until recently Esperaza was the centre of the fabrication of hats in the South of France; in 1929 there were 14 large hat manufacturers and in 1949 they produced 1.4 million hats per year, beeing Europe's second largest producer of hats. The last of these manufacturers shut its doors in 1990; hat production was transferred to Asia. Fortunately Esperaza has a museum, where the most beautiful of the hats are exhibited.

Each Sunday morning Esperaza has a regionally famous market, where many biological products are offered by the producers themselves..