Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur · France
Hill villages, Roman engineering and lavender — the France that everyone pictures, an hour inland from the coast.
Photo: Einaz80 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Provence is a large and varied region, and the part most visitors actually mean is quite specific: the triangle between Avignon, Aix-en-Provence and the Luberon hills, plus the Roman sites along the Rhône. Within about ninety minutes' driving you have the best-preserved Roman aqueduct in the world, a dozen hill villages built out of the rock they stand on, ochre quarries the colour of a sunset, and — for three weeks a year — the lavender fields that sell the entire region.
It is also the part of France that most rewards having a car and most punishes not having one. The villages sit on hilltops precisely because they were built to be defensible, which means no railway ever reached them. Public transport between Gordes, Roussillon, Bonnieux and Ménerbes ranges from infrequent to non-existent, and the whole pleasure of the place is the driving between them.
The other thing worth knowing before you book is the timing. Lavender does not flower until the very end of June, peaks through July and is harvested in the first half of August — a much narrower window than the marketing suggests. Come in May and the landscape is beautiful and green, with no purple in it at all.
Why visit
Provence has been painted, filmed and written about to the point of cliché. It survives that treatment because the things that made it famous are there and unusual.
The Pont du Gard carried water 50 km on a gradient of one in three thousand and still stands without mortar. Orange has the best-preserved Roman theatre wall in existence; Arles has an amphitheatre still used for events; Nîmes has a temple more intact than anything in Rome. Together they are the strongest concentration of Roman architecture outside Italy.
Gordes, Roussillon, Bonnieux, Ménerbes, Lacoste and Saignon are all built from local stone and stacked up hillsides with no straight lines anywhere. They are on every calendar for good reason, and each takes an hour to walk and no more.
Every town has its day — Apt on Saturday, Isle-sur-la-Sorgue on Sunday, Coustellet on Sunday morning, Saint-Rémy on Wednesday. These are working produce markets with the odd antiques stall, not craft fairs, and they are where the region's food culture is most visible.
Van Gogh produced around 300 works in about two years at Arles and Saint-Rémy, and Cézanne painted the same mountain sixty times. The ochre cliffs at Roussillon and the Colorado Provençal come in seventeen documented shades from pale yellow to deep red, all of it mined for pigment until the 1930s.
Outside July and August, Provence is startlingly empty. A village that has four coaches parked below it in August will have you and two locals in it in late September, with the same weather and better food.
Main attractions
These are spread across roughly 80 km, so group them geographically rather than by preference. The Luberon villages are one cluster, the Roman sites another.
A three-tier aqueduct bridge 49 metres high, built around 50 AD to carry water across the Gardon river, and assembled from precisely cut blocks weighing up to six tonnes without a drop of mortar. You can walk across the lowest tier and swim in the river below it, which puts the scale into perspective better than any viewing platform.
Tip Parking is charged per car and covers site entry. Go at opening or after 18:00 in summer, when the light is better and the crowds have gone.
The most photographed village in the Luberon, spiralling up a rock face in pale stone with a castle at the top. The classic view is from the layby on the D15 as you approach from the south. Twenty minutes down the road is the Abbaye de Sénanque, a 12th-century Cistercian abbey with a lavender field in front of it.
Tip Gordes is busy from mid-morning. The village is at its best at 08:30 or at dusk, and parking below is far easier at both times.
A village painted in every shade of the ochre that was mined beneath it, sitting on cliffs of the same material. The Sentier des Ocres is a 30 or 50-minute marked walk through the old workings, which look like a small canyon in Utah dropped into a French forest.
Tip The ochre dust stains. Do not wear anything white, and it does not come out of pale trainers.
A working town with a Roman amphitheatre still in use, a Roman theatre, the Alyscamps necropolis and the Fondation Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh painted the Café Terrace at Night and the Yellow House here, and marked panels around town show the paintings where he stood.
Tip Wednesday and Saturday mornings bring one of the biggest markets in Provence, spilling right along the boulevard.
The seat of the papacy for most of the 14th century, with the enormous Palais des Papes to show for it, a complete circuit of medieval walls, and the famous half-bridge over the Rhône. It has the region's best rail connections and works well as an arrival point.
Tip The Palais is largely empty rooms — the audio-visual tablet tour is worth the supplement to make sense of it.
A small town built on branches of a startlingly clear river, with old waterwheels still turning in the streets and the largest antiques trade in France outside Paris. The Sunday market takes over the whole centre and is the busiest and best in the region.
Tip Go on Sunday for the market or on a weekday for the town. On Sunday afternoons the traffic in and out is bad.
The postcard fields are mostly on the Valensole plateau, an hour east of the Luberon, and around Sault further north. Valensole flowers earlier, from late June; Sault is higher and peaks in mid-July, giving you a second chance if you arrive late.
Tip Harvest starts in the first half of August and the fields are cut fast. Late June to the third week of July is the reliable window.
An elegant university town of plane-tree avenues and fountains, with a daily produce market, Cézanne's studio preserved as he left it, and the Montagne Sainte-Victoire rising east of the city. It is the most urban thing in the region and a good change of pace after four days of villages.
Tip The Cours Mirabeau's cafés are for people-watching and priced accordingly. Eat in the lanes north of it instead.
Things to do
Provence rewards a low-intensity itinerary — one village and one market a day, with long lunches in between.
Pick the day, arrive by 09:00, and buy lunch rather than souvenirs: a rotisserie chicken, tapenade, goat's cheese rolled in herbs, tomatoes that smell of tomato, and a bottle of Côtes du Ventoux. Then find a view and eat it.
Tip Saturday is Apt and Arles, Sunday is Isle-sur-la-Sorgue and Coustellet, Wednesday is Saint-Rémy. Plan your week around them.
Gordes, Roussillon, Bonnieux, Lacoste, Ménerbes and Oppède-le-Vieux form a circuit of about 60 km on small roads through vineyards and cherry orchards. It takes a full day if you stop properly, and the driving is a large part of the point.
Tip Go anticlockwise starting at Gordes early, so you reach the quieter villages when the coaches arrive at the famous ones.
The river beneath the Pont du Gard has shallow beaches and is swimmable in summer. The Sorgue emerges from a spring at Fontaine-de-Vaucluse — one of the largest in the world — and is cold and clear enough to be startling.
Tip The Gardon can run low by late August. Early summer gives you the better water.
Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas and Vacqueyras are within 40 minutes of Avignon, and dozens of small domaines run informal tastings. This is red wine country — grenache-based, warm and generous — with excellent rosé for the summer.
Tip Most cellars close 12:00–14:00. Ring or email small producers a day ahead.
A flat, traffic-free path along a disused railway from Apt towards Cavaillon, running through the middle of the Luberon with village turn-offs along the way. It is the one part of the region that works well without a car.
Tip Bike hire is available in Apt, Coustellet and Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. The full route is about 40 km one way.
The Montagne Sainte-Victoire above Aix, the ridge above Bonnieux, or Mont Ventoux if you are ambitious — a bare limestone summit at 1,910 m that features regularly in the Tour de France and is drivable to the top.
Tip Ventoux's summit road usually closes from November to May because of snow.
Local food
Provençal cooking runs on olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, herbs and vegetables, with lamb and goat's cheese from the hills and fish from the coast an hour south.
Aubergine, courgette, pepper, onion and tomato cooked slowly in olive oil with herbs. Done properly the vegetables are cooked separately and combined at the end so each one keeps its character — which is exactly what the cheap versions skip.
Where to try it Traditional restaurants across the region, usually as a side to lamb or on its own at lunch.
Black olive paste with capers and anchovy, and a warm anchovy-and-garlic dip for raw vegetables. Both arrive as an aperitif with bread and both are far more intense than the supermarket versions.
Where to try it Every market in the region sells them by weight from tubs. Buy small quantities of several.
Beef braised for hours in red wine with orange peel, olives and herbs — the region's cold-weather dish, usually served with pasta or polenta rather than potatoes. Best from October through spring.
Where to try it Village restaurants in the Luberon, particularly in the off season.
Banon is the local star: a small cheese wrapped in chestnut leaves and tied with raffia, sold at every stage from fresh and chalky to strongly ripened. Ask the stallholder which stage you want and when you plan to eat it.
Where to try it Any Provençal market. The town of Banon itself, north of Apt, has the best selection.
Small orange-fleshed melons from the town at the western end of the Luberon, in season from June to September and different from what supermarkets sell. Traditionally eaten with a splash of Beaumes-de-Venise wine.
Where to try it Roadside stalls and every summer market. Cavaillon holds a melon festival in July.
A small almond-and-candied-melon sweet with a royal icing top, made in Aix-en-Provence since the 15th century. Shaped like a pointed oval and sold in boxes from specialist shops around the old town.
Where to try it Confiseries in central Aix. Several have been making them for more than a century.
Accommodation
You have a real choice between a town base with restaurants and transport, or a village base with atmosphere and silence. With a car, either works; without one, you must be in a town.
Transport
Arrive by TGV at Avignon and pick up a car there. Flying into Marseille also works and puts you an hour from the Luberon.
This is the one destination in this guide where a car is close to essential. The villages exist on hilltops with no rail access and minimal buses, and the driving between them is part of the experience.
When to go
Provence has a strong seasonal calendar and the right month depends on what you came for. If lavender is the point, you are locked into late June and July. If it is not, September is the best month of the year here.
Green, mild and quiet, with cherry and almond blossom in April and everything open by May. Temperatures of 18–26°C are ideal for walking the villages. The mistral wind can blow hard and cold for days at a time in spring.
The three weeks the region is famous for. Valensole flowers from about 25 June, Sault a fortnight later. It is beautiful and it is busy — sunrise at the popular fields now draws crowds and drones. Book accommodation months ahead.
Hot, often above 33°C, crowded, and with the lavender cut by early August. Village parking fills by 10:00, the coastal roads gridlock, and prices peak. The pools and the long evenings are lovely, but everything else is a compromise.
September is superb — warm, empty, with the grape harvest under way. October brings colour and the first rain. From November many rural hotels and restaurants close entirely, and while the villages are beautiful in winter light, you may find nowhere open to eat.
Worth planning around: The mistral, a cold northerly wind that funnels down the Rhône valley, can blow at 60–90 km/h for three, six or nine days at a stretch, most often in winter and spring. It clears the sky beautifully and makes sitting outside impossible.
Itinerary
Based in or near the western Luberon with a car, and built around two market mornings. Adjust the days to match whichever markets fall while you are there.
Arrive, get the car, and start with the Roman engineering.
The classic day: six villages, small roads, long lunch.
Buy lunch at a market, then head west to Van Gogh country.
Pick one depending on season and taste.
Travel tips
Provence-specific practicalities that catch people out.
FAQ
Late June to mid-July on the Valensole plateau, and roughly a fortnight later on the higher ground around Sault. Harvest begins in the first days of August and the fields are cut quickly. The reliable window is 25 June to about 20 July — outside it there is no lavender to see, which surprises a great many visitors.
For the Luberon hill villages, effectively yes. They sit on hilltops with no railway and only sparse buses that rarely allow a return trip in one day. You can have a good car-free trip based in Avignon or Arles focused on the Roman sites and market towns, which are all rail-connected — but the villages that define the region need a car or an organised tour.
Four to six. Four covers the Luberon village loop, one Roman site, one market and Arles or Avignon. Six lets you add the lavender plateaus, a wine day in Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Aix-en-Provence without rushing. The region rewards slowness, so err on the longer side if you can.
L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue or Cavaillon for practicality — central, rail-connected, with plenty of restaurants and 20–30 minutes to most villages. For atmosphere, stay in a village such as Bonnieux, Lourmarin or Saignon and accept that you will need the car for everything. Avignon is the best choice if you are arriving by train and want a city.
Yes — arguably more so. September gives you warm weather, the grape harvest, empty villages and half the prices, with the same light, food, markets and Roman sites. May is green and mild. The lavender is one very photogenic feature of a region that has a great deal else going on.
A cold, dry northerly wind that funnels down the Rhône valley, most common in winter and spring. It can blow at 60–90 km/h and traditionally lasts three, six or nine days. It leaves brilliantly clear skies behind it, which is partly why the light here is so prized, but it makes eating outside and flying a drone impractical while it lasts.
Easily. Nice is about 2h30 from the Luberon by car and 3h from Avignon by train. A common and very good two-week trip is four or five days in Provence with a car, then dropping the car and spending four days on the coast using the local railway. The two regions are close together and feel completely different.
Keep exploring
Places that pair well with Provence, whether you have a few spare days or are building a longer route.
Alpes-Maritimes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
France's fifth city curves around a two-mile bay of blue water, with an old town that was Italian until 1860 and a local rail line linking a dozen coastal villages.
Don't miss The Cours Saleya flower market, then the coastal train to Villefranche, Èze and Menton for €2 a hop.
Explore Destination — Nice & the French RivieraDordogne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
A limestone valley of castles, walnut groves and honey-coloured villages, holding the densest concentration of prehistoric sites in Europe and France's richest regional cooking.
Don't miss Lascaux — the most sophisticated prehistoric art ever found, seen through a replica so exact you forget it is one.
Explore Destination — The Dordogne & SarlatGironde, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
An 18th-century city of pale limestone facades along a curving river, transformed over two decades from soot-blackened port to one of France's most liveable cities.
Don't miss The Miroir d'Eau opposite the Place de la Bourse: the world's largest reflecting pool, and the best free show in France.
Explore Destination — BordeauxTuscany, Italy
A compact city holding the densest concentration of Renaissance art anywhere, with Chianti, Siena and the Val d'Orcia within an hour of its walls.
Don't miss Brunelleschi's dome of 1436 — still the largest masonry dome ever built, and you can climb inside it.
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