Gordes and the villages of the Luberon – a day from the rock to the ochre

Gordes on its rock, Sénanque in the valley, Roussillon in red ochre and Lourmarin beneath Luberon's southern slope. Here's how you make your way between Luberon's most famous villages in a day – with what's worth stopping for.

The Luberon in Vaucluse is Provence's most famous landscape: a low mountain range with villages perched on the cliffs, lavender in the valleys and vineyards between the stone walls. The entire area is a regional nature park, and several of the villages – Gordes, Roussillon, Ménerbes and Lourmarin among them – belong to the association Les Plus Beaux Villages de France. The distances are short, and by car you can reach the most important ones in a day.

Here is our route, from Gordes on the northern side of the valley to Lourmarin on the southern side. Start early: in summer, the villages are full of day visitors from mid-morning onwards. The property market in each village can be found on VERA PI's map of Vaucluse.

018am: Gordes on its rock

Gordes is perched on a cliff above the Calavon valley, with the houses terraced up towards the castle. A fortress was built here as early as 1031, and the castle at the centre of the village was partly rebuilt in Renaissance style in 1525. After the Second World War, artists found their way here, among them Marc Chagall and Victor Vasarely. In 2023, the American magazine Travel + Leisure named Gordes the world's most beautiful village.

The best view is from the road leading into the village from the south, where the whole of Gordes is silhouetted against the sky. In the village lies Airelles Gordes, La Bastide, one of France's palace hotels according to Atout France. The entire market in the village can be found on VERA PI's page about Gordes.

029.30am: Sénanque and the Village des Bories

North of Gordes, in a narrow valley, lies the Cistercian abbey of Sénanque. It was founded on 23 June 1148 by monks from Mazan in Ardèche, and the Romanesque church, cloister and dormitory remain almost unchanged since the Middle Ages. Today a small community of monks lives here. The lavender fields in front of the abbey bloom from mid-June for a few weeks, and it is one of the most photographed views in Provence.

On the way back, one and a half kilometres west of Gordes, lies the Village des Bories: about twenty stone huts built without mortar, which were used for agriculture. The site was restored in 1969–1976, is an open-air museum, and was classified as a historic monument in 1977.

0311am: Roussillon and the ochre

Roussillon sits on a ridge of ochre, and the whole village glows in yellow, orange and red. The ochre quarries were in operation from the end of the 1700s to 1930 and provided work for thousands of people. Today, quarrying is forbidden to protect the landscape. The Sentier des Ocres, the trail through the old quarries, takes 30 or 60 minutes depending on which loop you choose. Go early, before the heat, and avoid light-coloured shoes – the ochre stains.

041pm: lunch in Ménerbes

Ménerbes is a walled village on a hilltop in the Luberon, with just over 960 inhabitants. Between 1573 and 1578, it was the scene of a long siege during the Wars of Religion. In modern times, it became well known through Peter Mayle's book A Year in Provence. The village is small, with a couple of restaurants and a view over the valley to the north.

054pm: Lourmarin and the château

Take the road through the pass southwards to Lourmarin, at the foot of the southern side of the Luberon. The castle was built in 1480 by Foulques d'Agoult on the remains of a 12th-century fortress, and in 1526 the Renaissance wing was added. It was restored in 1921–1923 and is today a cultural foundation with concerts and exhibitions. The village has cafés and shops around small squares, and the writer Albert Camus is buried in the cemetery.

Stay for dinner. A few kilometres away, in Ansouis, you'll find Garrigue, which was awarded its first Michelin star in 2026.

The figures relate to January 2021 to June 2026 and are based on VERA PI's processing of the French tax authority's register. See also VERA PI's page on Lourmarin, our guide to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and more destinations among metromode.co's destinations.

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