Provence

The Luberon

Stone villages, a market morning, and a landscape that is quieter than its reputation if you sleep in only one of them.

Provence in July is lavender, heat, and a calendar of markets you should pick one of. The Luberon is beautiful in a way that has been thoroughly discovered. It is still worth it if you stay put.

You need a car, or a willingness to wait for infrequent buses. This is not a region to do from a Marseille hotel room between trains.

See

One village, learned
Walk it early, buy the thing the bakery is proud of, and sit out the heat. A second village after four is plenty.
A market morning
Saturday in Apt or Lourmarin, or whichever day your town holds. Shop for lunch. Leave before the car park becomes the attraction.
A view you drive to once
The look back at Gordes is the photograph. Take it, then go somewhere with a table in the shade.
An afternoon with no sight
A pool, a book, a walk between vines. The region fails people who treat it as a collection.

Stay

3 nights

Best for

villages, markets, doing very little

Base

Gordes if you want the famous silhouette and accept the visitors. Bonnieux, Lourmarin or a farmhouse let with a car if you want evenings that end.

Eat

Rosé, tomatoes, goat’s cheese, a long lunch. Book the dinner tables in July and August. A picnic from the market is often the best meal, eaten like a person who is not in a hurry, because you are not.

Get there

TGV to Avignon, then a car. Marseille airport is the other door. Do not plan to rely on evening buses between hill villages.

Watch

Heat, and the mistral, which can blow for days and is not quaint when you are on a terrace. Fire risk closes some paths in high summer. Markets are mornings. By two the town may have gone to sleep angry at the sun.

The Luberon

See

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