Peter Mayle Country

It seems that a visit to this part of France just isn’t complete without a drive into the Luberon, the area of France made famous by Peter Mayle’s “A Year in Provence”. Since penning that and subsequent follow-up books, this area has become a magnet for English speaking people and I have to say, they were everywhere today.

We started off with a walk through Bonnieux, which coincidentally, had a small market today. Any walk in this village is pretty much straight up or straight down as the whole town is built on a significant bump.


The elevation provided many superb views of the Luberon valley, Mt. Ventoux to the north and the village of Lacoste, directly across the valley from Bonnieux.

Lacoste of course, was the former home of the Marquis de Sade and his castle which was destroyed during the Revolution, has now been restored and is owned by Pierre Cardin who has turned it and other significant spaces in Lacoste into a haven for the Arts. I guess the controversy surrounding this is that most of his events are for privately invited guests, so the locals feel a little neglected.

From Bonnieux, we drove across the valley to Roussillon. I have included the token picture here to prove that indeed we have returned here for the umpteenth time. We made the obligatory stop to visit with Madame Valenti. During our chat we discussed Sunday closings and she said it is illegal to hire someone to work on Sunday. There are exceptions in tourist areas like Roussillon, but the unions are still pretty firm on keeping Sunday a day of rest.

From there, we wound our way home via Gordes, where we had a pique-nique beneath the village and took the obligatory picture of Gordes from the rock ledge on the road in.



Both Roussillon and Gordes are designated as Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, so the tourist flow here never abates.

By the heat of the day, we were back relaxing in Cairanne. It certainly is great to be so close to so many fabulous attractions!