Ansouis

Ansouis is a village of about 1,100 people on the southern edge of the Luberon, in the quieter half of the massif that most visitors never reach. It is one of the Most Beautiful Villages of France, and it is one of the least visited of them.

It sits between Pertuis and Cucuron, about 30 km north of Aix-en-Provence — closer to Aix than to the famous villages of the northern Luberon, which is why it belongs to a different circuit.

The château

The castle at the top of the village is the reason Ansouis exists. It was a defensive fortress in the tenth century and was rebuilt across the seventeenth as a residence, so it ends up as two buildings in one: bare medieval walls on the north side facing the drop, and a formal classical facade with terraced gardens on the south.

The Sabran family held it for close to eight centuries, until 2008 — an unusually long single tenure even by French standards. Two of them are saints: Elzéar de Sabran and his wife Delphine de Signe, a thirteenth-century couple who took a vow of chastity, were canonised, and are the village’s patrons.

The castle is privately owned and opens for guided visits on a limited schedule — check before making the trip, because it is the main thing here.

The village

Concentric lanes wind up the hill under the castle walls, with vaulted passages, worn stone stairways and doorways with carved lintels. The church of Saint-Martin is built into the castle’s outer defences — the nave is a former guard room, which is why it is such an odd shape.

Twenty minutes covers it, and the pleasure is that you will probably have it to yourself.

Musée Extraordinaire

In a vaulted cellar in the village, a painter and diver named Georges Mazoyer spent decades building an underwater grotto — a reconstruction of a Mediterranean seabed, with his shell and coral collection, in a medieval house. It has been in the guidebooks since the 1970s under exactly the name it deserves, and it is a genuine oddity.

What to eat and drink

This is the Luberon AOC at its southern end, and there are growers around the village — including one of the region’s better cooperatives at Ansouis itself. Otherwise Provençal cooking, and the Sunday morning market.

See Provençal cuisine.

Getting to Ansouis

• By car — the only practical way. 30 minutes from Aix-en-Provence, 50 from Avignon. Park below the village.
• By bus — occasional services from Pertuis and Aix; not a realistic day trip.

See parking in France.

Around Ansouis

• Cucuron — 6 km, with a rectangular pond under enormous plane trees in the middle of the village; the setting for several films
• Lourmarin — 12 km, with its Renaissance château, and where Albert Camus is buried
• La Tour-d’Aigues — 8 km, with the shell of a great Renaissance château
• Silvacane Abbey — one of the three Cistercian abbeys of Provence, 20 km south
• Bonnieux and Ménerbes — over the massif on the north side, about 40 minutes

When to go

Spring and autumn, and check the castle’s opening days first. The southern Luberon is a good deal quieter than the north in July and August — if the crowds at Gordes have put you off, this is where to come instead.

See when to visit Provence.

Photo credits

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

• Carved doorway in Ansouis — Paul Munhoven, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
• Stairway to the castle — Vi..Cult…, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Weather in Ansouis

Updated: 14 September 2026