Manosque

Manosque is the largest town in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, on the Durance between the Luberon and the Valensole plateau. It is a working town rather than a picture-postcard one, and it has two associations: Jean Giono, who was born here and wrote about this landscape all his life, and L’Occitane, whose factory and headquarters are on the edge of town.

It is also the practical gateway to the lavender plateau and the Verdon, and it has a railway station — which almost nothing else out here does.

The two gates

The old town is oval, walled, and entered through two fourteenth-century gates that survived when the walls came down:

• Porte Saunerie — the salt gate, crenellated and machicolated, and the emblem of the town
• Porte Soubeyran — with an eighteenth-century wrought-iron campanile on top, of the kind Provence puts on everything

Between them the centre is pedestrian: narrow streets, small squares, and two churches — Saint-Sauveur, twelfth-century with a Romanesque nave, and Notre-Dame de Romigier, which holds a fourth-century marble sarcophagus used as its altar and a black Virgin.

Jean Giono

Giono was born in Manosque in 1895, the son of a cobbler and a laundress, worked in a bank here for eighteen years and stayed in the town until he died in 1970. His novels — Regain, Le Hussard sur le toit, Que ma joie demeure — are set in this landscape, and he is the writer who shaped how the French see Haute-Provence.

He also wrote The Man Who Planted Trees, which is set on the plateau above the town and is often mistaken for a true story.

His house, Le Paraïs, on the hillside above the town, is open by appointment and left as he had it. The Centre Jean Giono in the centre covers the work.

L’Occitane

The cosmetics company was founded in 1976 by a local man distilling rosemary in a secondhand still, and it is now one of the largest employers in the department. The factory on the edge of town runs guided visits and has a shop, and the company’s presence is a large part of why Manosque has grown rather than emptied like much of Haute-Provence.

Getting to Manosque

• By train — Manosque-Gréoux station is on the Marseille–Briançon line, about an hour and a quarter from Marseille and 50 minutes from Aix. The station is 3 km from the centre, with a bus.
• By car — on the A51, an hour from Aix. See parking in France.
• By bus — services to Forcalquier, Digne and Gréoux.

Around Manosque

• Valensole plateau — 20 minutes east, and the lavender everyone comes to Provence for; see lavender in Provence
• Gorges du Verdon — an hour east, via the lavender
• Gréoux-les-Bains — a thermal spa town 15 km away, Roman in origin
• Forcalquier — 25 km north, with the Monday market
• Lac de Sainte-Croix — the turquoise reservoir at the mouth of the Verdon, 45 minutes
• The Luberon — over the hill west; see Apt

When to go

Late June and July if the lavender is why you are here — Manosque is the cheapest sensible base for the Valensole plateau, and much easier to find a room in than the villages. Otherwise spring and autumn.

Be clear about what the town is: a real Provençal working town with a good old centre, not a hill village. Come for the position, and stay for Giono.

See Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.

Photo credits

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

• Porte Saunerie — Chabe01, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
• The gate from the street — Mich-nguyen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Weather in Manosque

Updated: 23 September 2026