The Red Rock village of Roussillon.

Built from ochre rich rock dug from the surrounding area Roussillon seems to glow from the top of a hill in the Luberon area of Provence. The brightly coloured local earth and rock has been put to many uses over the centuries. The Romans used it in pottery glazes and the bright yellows, reds and oranges were used as dyes in the textile industry for hundreds of years until the 1930s.

Centuries of erosion and quarrying have left strange but impressive rock and cliff formations in and around the village. A walking trail - Le Sentier des Ocres - leads through this red landscape. 

You can visit a former ochre mine/factory which has been turned into a museum and shows how the ochre was made into pigment. The Conservatoire des Ocres et Pigments Appliques is on the D104 outside the village in the direction of Apt. L'Usine d'ocre Mathieu.

Also known as the Colorado Provencal, some of the scenery in the area is reminiscent of Australia's red centre.

Playwright Samuel Beckett, who wrote in English and French, lived in Roussillon between 1942 and 1945, where he helped the Resistance by hiding arms in his garden. He mentions the village in Waiting for Godot when Vladimir tells Estragon that everything there was all red. While the two tramps wait for Godot, who of course never turns up, the unlikely subject of the vendange (wine harvest or grape picking) and red Roussillon in Provence crops up. Theatre of the absurd indeed.

Officially one of the most beautiful villages in France, as given the stamp of approval by Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, an association set up in 1982, which aims to:

"avoid certain pitfalls such as villages turning into soulless museums or, on the contrary, "theme parks". Our well-reasoned and passionate ambition is to reconcile villages with the future and to restore life around the fountain or in the square shaded by hundred-year-old lime and plane trees."

The association has approved over 150 villages, which have to meet certain criteria, in 21 regions and 69 departments.

Isle sur la Sorgue - antiques heaven and a mini Venice.

Set on an island between branches of the River Sorgue, Isle sur la Sorgue is interwoven with canals and has a refreshing air about it. It is also the place to go if you want antiques as the town has the largest concentration of antique shops in France outside Paris.

Water wheels around the town were once used in the silk industry and in the wool, rug, and dying industries. Paper making was also big business.

The river made an ideal mote around the town and helped protect the town ramparts as far back as the 12th century.


An impressive cathedral can be found in the centre of the town next to a square with cafes and restaurants. There are many water side eateries too.


Charismatic tv chef Keith Floyd lived near Isle sur la Sorgue until he died in 2009. Floyd was known for his individual style of presenting, which included taking gulps of wine in between cookery moves and strange cuts while food was cooking to show a pottery wheel spinning round. He shot many cookery programmes in Provence. Here he is cooking chicken casserole on a boat in France..

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La Fontaine de Vaucluse, the largest spring in France.

The Fontaine de Vaucluse is the name of a pretty little village where you will also find the source of the River Sorgue. From the village it is a short pleasant walk along the side of the river to the natural spring, which is hidden deep underground. Surrounded by cliffs standing hundreds of metres tall, a pool of water fills the cavern at the bottom. Depending on the time of year the pool is either a clear blue green colour or a stagnant grey. Water levels get low in summer, but in winter a real torrent can flow downstream.

The deep bottom of the hole was not found until 1985 when an unmanned submersible touched ground at more than 300 metres down. As well as being the most powerful spring in France it is also the fifth most powerful in the world, turning out millions of cubic metres of water a year.

This energy was once put to use to make paper and the old paper mill is now a museum where you can see how it was made. There is a shop selling paper made in the old fashioned way.

A shepherd facing the mistral - a popular santon design.

Also next to the river is a museum of the French Resistance. The village and riverside is so small you can't really miss any of the museums. There is also a museum of santons, which are provencal figurines, very popular especially at Christmas.

There is also a museum for Petrarch, the Italian Renaissance poet, on the site where he wrote his famous Canzoniere, which is a collection of poems to Laura, whom he loved or idolised.

Above the village is a ruined castle, which was built by monks to protect pilgrims.

Sitting at the head of a valley at the foot of the Vaucluse mountains, the village gives the whole French department its name. Vaucluse comes from the Latin Villa Clausa, meaning valley closed. 

The Luberon: village of stone huts where shepherds lived.

Le Village des Bories - just outside Gordes on the D2.

This reconstructed village of dry stone huts is fascinating to visit. It is thought that bories were used as dwellings in Provence as long ago as the Bronze Age.

The one you can visit outside Gordes dates back to the 1600s. Buildings differ slightly and labels say what each was used for. As you wander round you get a sense of what it must have been like to live in such harsh conditions and in such close proximity to your animals.



The dome shaped bories were often used on a seasonal basis and driving around the Luberon you can still spot one or two in fields.

A borie is similar to a bothy. Bothies were built out of slate in England's Lake District in Cumbria by workers on slate mines. They were also built with great skill, using no mortar or cement. Both bories and bothies were used until well in the 1900s. A display in the Village des Bories shows similar dwellings in other parts of the world. More information can be found at the Gordes website Gordes village .

Perched Villages of the Luberon: Gordes.

The Luberon  is classic Provence, row after row of impeccably tended vines, medieval villages clinging to hillsides, lavender fields aplenty and stunning scenery.

In the heart of the Luberon is a large valley which is surrounded by mountains, to the south the Petit Luberon and Grand Luberon ranges, as well as the Luberon Oriental, and to the north the high Vaucluse Plateau.

There are many walking trails, although the height of summer is not the best time to attempt them, as the heat may well get the better of you.

Gordes

Gordes clings to the edge of the Vaucluse Plateau and surveys all she sees. Once a magnet for artists,  Gordes was a resistance stronghold in the war and deserves it's title as one of the most beautiful villages in France. It's little winding lanes lead to the most spectacular views.


Sites to see in Gordes include an impressive castle, which dates back to the 11th century, a museum and the church. 

More information can be found on the Gordes website Gordes village .