Cabrieres d’Avignon is a neighbour to famous Luberon villages but makes no impression on guidebooks to Provence. It is not perched on a hill like many other villages, and has no beauty spots to speak of. It is simply an authentic Provence village, with old golden stones, and most of the essentials you want from a village: a restaurant, baker, butcher and grocery store.

Cabrieres sounds like it is next to Avignon, but it isn't, it actually used to belong to Avignon. It has been around since the 1100s, as has its castle, with subsequent restorations.

Cabrieres d'Avignon village centre

CENTURIES OF STONE

When you walk around the village you won’t fail to notice the dry stone houses and walls all around. These stones were dredged by hand from surrounding fields in order to make them cultivatable. This was a labour of centuries and the resulting constructions can be seen as works of art passed down the generations, stone by stone.

You can walk along the remains of the dry stone wall of the ‘mur de la peste’ which ran for 27km across country from the village to Methamis. This was a mournful attempt to keep the Great Plague at bay in 1720, with sentry boxes along its length. It is now less high than it was, but still there.