Gordes

Gordes is the picture people have in their heads when they think of the Luberon: a village of pale stone stacked up a cliff face in tiers, with a castle at the top and the Vaucluse plain below. It is on the list of the Most Beautiful Villages of France and it is the most visited village in the region.

It sits 38 km east of Avignon, and the approach from the D15 with the whole village rising in front of you is the reason to come by car.

The village

Gordes was a fortified position from the eleventh century and the stone is all the same pale limestone, which is what gives the place its unity. The château at the top is Renaissance on medieval foundations, with a monumental carved chimneypiece of 1541 inside; it houses the town hall and exhibitions.

Below it the calades — stepped cobbled lanes — drop through vaulted passages to the terraces. It is steep, and comfortable shoes matter more here than anywhere else in the Luberon.

The village was largely abandoned in the nineteenth century and revived after the war by artists — Chagall, Vasarely and André Lhote all worked here — which is why its restoration is so thorough.

Abbaye de Sénanque

Four kilometres north, in a fold of the hills, stands the Cistercian abbey of Sénanque, founded in 1148. Cistercian building is deliberately plain — no sculpture, no colour, just proportion — and the abbey church, cloister and dormitory are among the purest Romanesque interiors in France.

It is also the single most photographed lavender field in the world, because the monks grow lavender in the field in front of the church. Two things to know: the flowering runs roughly from mid-June to mid-July, and the abbey is a working monastery — a dozen monks live there, the interior is visited by guided tour only, and it needs booking.

Village des Bories

Two kilometres south-west: a settlement of about twenty bories — beehive huts of dry-laid limestone, no mortar at all, built as shelters and sheepfolds. The technique goes back to prehistory and these were in use until the nineteenth century. It is an open-air museum now, and quietly remarkable.

Getting to Gordes

• By car — effectively the only way. Under an hour from Avignon, 40 minutes from Aix. Parking is the problem: the village car parks fill by mid-morning in season and the approach road backs up. Come before ten.
• By bus — sparse services from Cavaillon and Apt; possible to get in, often not possible to get back the same day.

See parking in France.

Around Gordes

• Roussillon — 10 km, and the complete opposite in colour
• Fontaine-de-Vaucluse — the spring where the Sorgue comes out of the rock, one of the largest karst springs in the world
• L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue — the antiques town, with its Sunday market
• Ménerbes and Bonnieux — the villages along the south side of the Luberon
• Avignon — under an hour

When to go

June and July for the lavender at Sénanque, September and October for everything else — Gordes in August is a traffic jam with a view. The light on the stone is best in the late afternoon, which is also when the coaches have left.

See the lavender fields of Provence and when to visit Provence.

Weather in Gordes

Updated: 7 September 2026