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Main Luberon page

Les Gorges du Regalon

Merindol, Lourmarin,Cucuron

Bonnieux, Lacoste

Menerbes, Oppede, Robion

Cavaillon, starting point of another grand tour

Luberon-Roussillon-Ochre but not a so idyllic destination 

Cabrières d'Avignon, Mur de la  Peste, Bories

Gordes and abbaye de Senanques

Gorges de Veroncle, Murs, grottoes de la Barigoule

Roussillon, ochre but a not so idyllic destiny

Apt, Saignon and Sivergues

Buoux, Pertuis, Ansouis, Cadenet,  abbey of Sylvacane

Along the impressive southern slopes of the plateau du Vaucluse, numerous lost small villages are scattered, but we can’t look them all up. They are to visit randomly, as it is the most convenient for you, depending where your hotel or base is. What interests us now is ROUSSILLON.

ROUSSILLON on its steep rock and along the wild ochre canyons and ditches is one of the standard examples of sociological phenomena where unasked attention of the outer world destabilized permanently the society of a village. Problems started for Roussillon in the summer of 1950 with the venue of the American ethno-sociologist Laurence Wylie and his family. His goal was to study the sociology of a “typical French village” and he wrote a romanced book about it. He had talent so it became a very good book “Village in the Vaucluse”. He called Roussillon “Peyrane” but that could not fool the enthusiastic readers who came in great number to visit hoping to meet the heroes of the book. The result was that the gaped at villagers looked Wylie in the neck in anger and wrath.
Apparently, Peter Mayle created the same effect with his so-called moral depictions, in the eighties, with his “A Year in Provence”. It became almost a mass hysteria for Provence! Contrarily to Wylie, who made a responsible, scientific and sociological study, Peter Mayle wrote fast digestible food for the bus tourist in an era where tourism had already begun to take other ways. The “Roussillon” effect caused by Wylie in the sixties was not to compare to the nuisance and annoyance inflicted to a village like Menerbes, about which Peter Mayle wrote as if the local population walked through life in an eternal commedia del arte style. I must confess that I read Peter Mayle’s book only a few days ago and that it doesn’t wonder me a bit he created that storm.
The only one who avoided these unpleasant side effects was Jean-Paul-Clebert. Long before May 1968 and its desire to eradicate everything of the existing establishment, the young Clebert came in the early fifties from a rainy Paris to the Luberon. First he lived in a shack behind Bonnieux, later in a restored ruin of Oppede. Maybe he wrote too much, but it attained not more than a happy few, and it bothered nobody. Parisian intellectuals, artists and big money who bought a second residence in the Luberon, thanks to his books, do everything to go through life without attracting attention.
But let’s talk a bit about ROUSILLON!!
A genuine tourist village today, highly visited with all the stereotypes of the nicely cleaned, repainted and displayed Provence. For the managers of the Parc Regional it is even big worry. The number of candidate visitors is many times higher than there is parking place on the rock.
But let’s stop the negative side and look at the bright side!
ROUSSILLON is a village with high houses in red, yellow and rusty brown, impregnated of this tint that is magnified by the light. The ochre colour you will see anywhere comes from  the nearby quarries.  Jean Vilar, the founder of the Avignon theater festival, named the place : "Delphes la Rouge". Loiter around in the village, look at the workshops of the artisans selling paintings (?), antiques, jewellery and painted furniture. Near the picturesque gate –with a clock on top---a road leads to the panorama point “castrum”.

Vallée des Fées

From here you have a stunning view on the valley of Coulon, the south Great Luberon, the flanks of the mont Ventoux and the plateau du Vaucluse in the north. Another promenade is that of the "Val des Fees"(red cliffs to the west), and the eroded cliffs on the chaussee des Geants. Another one not to miss: the "circuit des Ocres", superb and very amusing for the kids. It's a marked ballad of 30 min, in the ancient ochre quarries.
The famous ochre landscape between Roussilon and Gignac was once called by Serge Bec, another notorious Luberon specialist, “ an aesthetic chaos”. What you see here in a distance of a fifteen miles of hills, lumps and mountains in colours going from heavy red to deep yellow, must be the perfect completion of the Walt Disney’s super dream. This ochre was once extracted as paint for the outside of Provencal house. The mines were open, like in the so-called Colorado, or underground in the neighbourhood of Gargas. That’s why they call it today the “Provencal Colorado”.

 Bibliography

"La Provence et le Comtat Venaisin, Arts et Traditions Populaires", by B.Fernand (Aubanel, Avignon 1992), "Guide de la Provence mysterieuse" by Jean-Paul Clebert (Ed.Sand, 1986), "Provence", by Jacques-Louis Delpal (ed.Natahn Paris 1987), "A guide to Provence", by Michael Jacobs (ed;Viking, London 1988), "Luberon, carnets d'un voyageur attentif", by Ollivier-Elliot Patrick,(ed. Edisud Aix-en-Provence 1991), "Dictionnaire de la Provence medievale", by Jean Favier (Fayard, Paris 1993)