Ménerbes

Ménerbes runs along a narrow ridge on the south side of the Luberon, shaped — as the guidebooks never fail to say — like a ship at anchor above the vines. It is one of the Most Beautiful Villages of France, and it is the village that made the Luberon famous in English.

A Year in Provence

Peter Mayle bought a farmhouse just outside Ménerbes in the late 1980s and wrote A Year in Provence about the experience. The book sold in the millions, was filmed, and set off the wave of British and American house-buying that changed the Luberon permanently — property prices, restaurant menus, who lives here in August.

Mayle himself moved away for a while because of the visitors, then came back and lived nearby until his death in 2018. The house is private and not marked; do not go looking for it.

The village

One street along the spine of the ridge, with the drop on both sides and views to Mont Ventoux one way and the Luberon massif the other. It is small — twenty minutes end to end — and unusually quiet for a famous village, because there is no single monument for coaches to stop at.

What there is:

• The citadel at the western tip — a private house now, but the point of the ridge is public and the view is the best in the Luberon
• The church of Saint-Luc, fourteenth-century, at the eastern end
• The Hôtel de Tingry and the other seventeenth-century houses along Rue Cornille
• The Dora Maar house — Picasso bought it in 1944 for the photographer and painter Dora Maar, in exchange for a painting; it is now a residency for writers and artists
• Musée du Tire-Bouchon — a corkscrew museum at the Domaine de la Citadelle below the village, with a thousand of them, and a tasting room. Considerably better than it sounds.

The siege

Ménerbes was held by Protestants during the Wars of Religion and withstood a Catholic siege for fifteen months in 1577–78 — the ridge is defensible on every side, and the village had a spring. It finally fell by negotiation rather than assault.

What to eat and drink

The village has a couple of good restaurants and no supermarket. The Luberon AOC vineyards run right up to the ridge, and the Domaine de la Citadelle below the village takes visitors. Truffles are a serious local business in winter, sold at the markets in Carpentras and Apt.

See Provençal cuisine.

Getting to Ménerbes

• By car — the only sensible way. 20 minutes from Cavaillon, 50 from Avignon. Park below the village and walk up.
• By bus — a very thin service from Cavaillon; not a realistic day trip.

See parking in France.

Around Ménerbes

• Bonnieux — 10 km east along the same road, and the next village on the ridge
• Lacoste — 5 km, with the Marquis de Sade’s ruined castle, now owned by Pierre Cardin
• Oppède-le-Vieux — 6 km west, a half-abandoned village below its ruined castle, and the least visited of them all
• Gordes and Roussillon — across the valley on the north side

When to go

May, June, September and October. Ménerbes is one of the Luberon villages that stays bearable in summer simply because there is no single sight to queue for — but the whole region is at its best in the autumn, when the vines turn and the light goes long.

See when to visit Provence.

Photo credits

Photographs on this page come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences:

• Ménerbes above the vines — Jean-Marc Rosier, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
• Rue Kléber Guendon — Romainbehar, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Weather in Ménerbes

Updated: 10 September 2026