Carpentras

Carpentras is a town of about 30,000 at the foot of Mont Ventoux, 25 km north-east of Avignon. It was the capital of the Comtat Venaissin, the papal territory in Provence, from 1320 until the Revolution — and that history left it two things nowhere else has: the oldest synagogue in France, and one of the great truffle markets.

It is a working Provençal town, not a village, and it is barely visited.

The synagogue

Under papal rule the Comtat was one of the only places in France where Jews were allowed to live after the expulsions of the fourteenth century. Four communities existed, in what were called the carrières — Carpentras, Cavaillon, Avignon and L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue — under restrictive but stable protection.

The synagogue of Carpentras, rebuilt in 1741 on foundations of 1367, is the oldest still in use in France. The interior is eighteenth-century Provençal — panelling, wrought iron, a gallery — and beneath it are the ritual bath and the bakery where unleavened bread was made. It is a listed monument and it is open to visitors.

Cathédrale Saint-Siffrein and the Roman arch

The cathedral is Meridional Gothic of the fifteenth century, built when Carpentras was a papal capital. Its south door is known as the Porte Juive — the door through which Jewish converts were brought to be baptised, a detail worth knowing rather than glossing over.

Tucked behind the cathedral, half-hidden between buildings, stands a Roman triumphal arch of the first century, carved with two chained captives. It is the oldest thing in Carpentras and one of very few of its kind left in Provence.

Hôtel-Dieu

An eighteenth-century hospital built by Bishop d’Inguimbert, with its original pharmacy intact — painted cabinets, hundreds of faience jars, and the panels of monkeys playing apothecary that decorate the doors. The building now also houses the Inguimbertine library, one of the great provincial collections in France.

The markets

The Friday market takes over the whole town centre and is among the largest in Provence — several hundred stalls, and a real one rather than a tourist reconstruction.

The truffle market from mid-November to March is the serious business: Carpentras handles a substantial share of France’s black truffle trade, and the wholesale market on Friday mornings is conducted between brokers out of car boots, in cash, at speed. There is a retail market alongside it for everyone else.

In July the town also holds a strawberry festival — the Carpentras strawberry is an early variety with its own protected label.

Berlingots

The town’s sweet: a small striped pyramid of hard boiled sugar, flavoured with mint, made here since the nineteenth century using the syrup left over from candying fruit. Sold in tins in every shop in town.

Getting to Carpentras

• By train — the line from Avignon reopened to passengers in 2015 after fifty years, and takes about 30 minutes. This makes Carpentras one of the very few places in the Vaucluse reachable without a car.
• By bus — services to the Ventoux villages and the Dentelles.
• By car — 30 minutes from Avignon. On Fridays the centre is closed for the market; park on the ring. See parking in France.

Around Carpentras

• Mont Ventoux — the bare white summit 25 km north-east, and the most famous climb in cycling
• Dentelles de Montmirail — the limestone combs above Gigondas and Vacqueyras
• Venasque and Pernes-les-Fontaines — the villages south, one of them with forty fountains
• Sault — the lavender plateau, an hour east, which flowers later than the Luberon
• Châteauneuf-du-Pape — 30 km west

When to go

Friday, whatever the season — the market is the reason to come. Winter for the truffles, July for the strawberries and the lavender on the plateau above. Carpentras is not a pretty village and does not pretend to be; it is where the region actually does its business.

See the lavender fields of Provence.

Photo credits

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

• The Roman arch — Véronique Pagnier, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
• The Hôtel-Dieu — Marianne Casamance, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
• The Sunday brocante — Marianne Casamance, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Weather in Carpentras

Updated: 11 September 2026