The Luberon by Maureen Barry

“Tuesday it’s Carpentras’ craft market, Wednesday it’s Apt’s fantastic fruit and veg — and the cheeses just have to be seen to be believed — Thursday and Friday there’s art and drama at St Rémy,” my hostess rapped out her list, “then opera on Saturday at Orange and on Sunday — a special treat — the antique market at Ile-sur-Sorgue!” It was obvious that here in the Luberon, among people who know, there’d never be a dull moment whether your unfulfilled craving lay in the soul or in the stomach.

The Luberon might have remained forever a little-known area in the French Midi had it not been for the impact on the local scene of Peter Mayle and his best-selling slices of Provençal life, since when the region has become transformed by the English psyche into a Gallic sort of Larkin-land, full of amiable peasants and endearingly industrious artisans.

Marcel Pagnol’s slightly more vicious interpretation of Provençal village life was perhaps nearer the mark and cult followers of his films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources had more francophiles hot-footing it across the Channel in search of that elusive real thing — totally untrammeled Provençal charm.

Not surprising that they found the Luberon, a land full of unlikely curiosities, one of the most appealing corners of Provence. The range of moon-landscape hills divides at Bonnieux into the Grand Luberon to the east and the Petit Luberon to the west. The higher and wilder Grand Luberon can still claim to be ‘unknown’ — from the village of Auribeau I hiked up on foot to the peak of Rourre Negre, an appetite-rousing 1,100 metres, for a breathtaking view stretching from the Rhône to the Alps.

Back in Auribeau it was napkin-tucked-under-chin time at dusk at La Besette for some thrush pâté, the local speciality, then an omelette made with truffles from the Ventoux, followed by the marvellous lamb of Sisteron, the flesh subtly scented from its diet of tiny wild herbs that grow in the garrigue, with aubergines and red peppers char-grilled to intensify their sweetness, and to finish the piquant goat cheeses of valreas, picodon and banon. To drink I had a rosé from the Chateau Val Joanis which lies in the eponymous valley in the Luberon mountains.

But it is the Petit Luberon to the west of Apt that seems to hold the elusive essence that is for some the ‘real’ Provence. The name Vaucluse comes from the Latin for ‘closed valley’. On one side it is flanked by the valley of the Rhône with its vineyards and on the other by the Durance, with the white-topped Mount Ventoux rising majestically over the predominant tones of deep purple, orange and green —Cezanne’s colours and country. This is a fecund land of swelling grapevines and luxuriant vegetable plots, honey-coloured villages clinging to steep hillsides alongside a protective château, fields of waving lavender and scattered everywhere the wild herbs that spread the pervasive perfume that is the classic scent of the Midi.

The first inhabitants of the Luberon, the Vaudois, were a pretty wild bunch who were over-fond of pillaging and general shenanigans, so much so that a medieval Royal Crusade had most of them rather gruesomely thrown out. Today the area attracts a different kind of settler. It has become just about the most popular corner of France for actors, intellectuals, politicians and others, not just the French who have bought second homes here but francophiles from all over the world who have bought old properties, especially around Bonnieux, Menerbes, Gordes and other hill villages. This might have changed the Luberon’s social character— in fact some of the liveliest cocktail parties in the world are held hereabouts — but it hasn’t done anything to interfere with the natural beauty of the landscape. Very wisely no new building is permitted — and although old buildings can be converted a very vigilant conservation lobby makes sure that villages preserve their outward aspect. Of course this has pushed house prices up and added to the area’s trendiness.

“Sur le pont, d’Avignon...” every schoolchild knows the ancient nursery rhyme and, though the capital of the Vaucluse was the seat of the Popes in the 14th century everybody, has heard of its ‘pont’ and more recently its summertime drama festival. For this land is a culture vulture’s dream — small wonder it attracts so many of the cognoscenti. Exquisite examples of Roman, Romanesque and Gothic architecture are scattered between Avignon and Digne and so many towns hold art festivals in the summer months that you’d be hard-pressed to visit them all. Since the war the Luberon has been the main focus of cultural life in Provence and has boasted such talents as the writers Camus and Julio Cortazar, the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, the abstract artists Andre Lhote and Nicholas de Stael, the op-artist Vaserely whose museum is at Gordes and the now highly fashionable English creator of life-sized terracotta reliefs, Raymond Mason.

Make sure that you’re in Chateauneuf-du-Pape on the first weekend in August and have a gloriously tipsy time at the Fête de Ia Veraison, when they celebrate the changing of the grape colour from green to red with an antiques fair and medieval craft market, all done with inimitable French panache. Only a few days later I sat in evening dress in the Roman amphitheatre at Orange and listened to Verdi, the combined spell of the setting, the Provençal night and the singing lifted opera into another dimension.

“Carpentras is November...” I was told. Every town has its season, its time to show off the skills of its artists and artisans. The arts and crafts fair in Carpentras has been pulling in the crowds in November for the last 460 years, quite an impressive record. And if you miss that one but can manage to be there in January, February or March your nose will tell you that you’ve come to the truffle fair.

Don’t miss the Provençal festival in Bollene in September, another excuse for much tippling and eating of local specialities, like a mouth-scorching aioli, or a pistou soup based on vegetables and a purée of garlic and basil, or one of the many game dishes from the mountains: hare, pheasant or chamois. Apt, in the Grand Luberon, is famous for its candied fruit and its Saturday morning market that sings with colour from the cornucopia of plenty groaning on its stalls. If you are here in December you must visit the Salon des Santonniers, where the carved wooden figures known as santons are made and sold. Carving wooden furniture and santons is a speciality in the Luberon, it used to be the shepherds’ hobby on the long evenings when the sheep had come down from the pastures for winter and now it’s a very welcome source of supplementary income.

One of the most romantic places in the whole of the Luberon is the Fontaines de Vaucluses, where water from underground chasms rises dramatically to the surface. This is the spot where Petrarch used to come and pine for his Laura, surely the greatest unrequited love in history. In an attempt to find out the legendary depth of the source Jacques Cousteau sent a diver...he never returned and the source to this day retains its mystery. Not far from the Fontaines is Baumede-Venise, home of the exquisite dessert wine, made from the pourriture noble, noble rot, of the late autumn grapes, the distillation of summer in one heady bottle.

Lovely as the Petit Luberon still is, if you want to find La France profonde it is more likely to he found among the hills of rippling lavender of the Grand Luberon, with the winding trails of the shepherds and their stone bories leading you on to small villages where time has left no mark on the architecture or way of life. On the way you can peer with awe at the most beautiful limestone gorge in Europe, the Gorges de Verdon, and stop at all cost at Moustiers-la-Marie whose renowned potters made a dinner service for Louis XIV at Versailles. But then head for the heights of the Valensole plateau, see the wonder of the Luberon spread out before you and feel the inspiration that has drawn many artists to live and work in this especially blessed corner of France.