Bollène

Bollène is a French town with 14,040 inhabitants (as of 1 January 2011 ) in the Vaucluse department in the Provence- Alpes- Côte d' Azur. It belongs to the community association Communauté de communes Rhône -Lez- Provence.

Geography

Bollène located 17 kilometers north- west of Orange, near the Valley of the Rhone, whose tributary Lez flows through the community. The town is also on the Canal de Donzère - Mondragon with a big lock system.

Twinning

Since 1994 there has been twinned with Alcúdia in Mallorca.

Culture and sights

Bollène nationally represented with two flowers in the Conseil des villes et villages fleuris ( National Council of flowery towns and villages ). The " flowers " are awarded as part of a regional competition, a maximum of three flowers can be achieved.

Structures

The hydropower plant André Blondel was built by the architect Théodore Sardnal 1949-1952. The main building was named after André -Eugène Blondel (1863-1938), a French physicist. It houses six turbine groups. The power plant is one of the first big industrial buildings of the Fourth French Republic. It is an example of the technical architecture and elle history of the postwar period. The building is entered in the additional directory ( inventaire supplémentaire) of Monuments historiques ( historical monuments ).