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Menerbes		Gordes		Goult
Roussillon		Lourmarin		Fontaine de Vaucluse
Lacoste		Bonnieux		Isle sur Sorgue

The Luberon is characterised by a series of strikingly picturesque perched, hill-top villages, dating back 1000 years or more - famous names like Gordes, Roussillon, Bonnieux, Lacoste and Menerbes.

To understand why they are there, perched and huddled atop hills and promontories, you have to consider that this part of the world has been fought over for many centuries, exchanging hands by fair means and foul, pillaged and ravaged by invading hordes, as well as decimated by various plagues.

The villages perchés are the natural response to all this unpleasantness - get up on some high ground and barricade yourself in. Rising up above the plain gives them the powers of defence and observation.

The buildings of a perched village tend to be densely clustered around the castle and church. Narrow winding streets and stairs run through the villages. As a result they are not just beautiful to look at from down below, but fascinating to explore from within.

A village like Menerbes, stretched out along a flat promontory, is like a stone citadel. As a protestant stronghold in 1573 it resisted catholic assaults for 5 years before falling into their hands.

From the 16th century onwards, villages sprang up in the plain as well. Lourmarin, for example, which still shows a defensive circular formation around the chateau.

Near a village's church you will find the village square, large enough to accommodate all the villagers. The care that went into constructing the fountain in the square attests to the importance of the arrival of water in the village. This is a region where homes did not start to have running water until the 1950s. The fountain would have been the only source of water for the whole village.

Other time-worn elements of every village are the stone wash basins, mills, pigeonniers (pigeon houses), and terraced farmland stepped into the slopes with dry stone walls.

The architectural richness of this land has grown from seeds planted through the ages by the endless generations that have sprung up, flowered, and ceased to be in the soil of the Luberon.