Today I present to you one more Luberon-village: Roussillon!

This was the last stop of our ‘three-village tour of the Luberon’ we did in April. Below I will share with you our itinerary, but first let me tell you a bit more about Roussillon.

Roussillon should not be skipped on a tour to the Luberon for two reasons: the beautiful village and of course the ochre rocks.

On arrival, we parked our car at the car park outside of the village. We first visited the ochre rocks. There’s a choice of a short walk (35 minutes) and a longer walk (50 minutes). We opted for the short walk as we still wanted to have enough time to visit the village as well.

Ochre has been mined here for centuries and a lot of famous painters and artists have used Roussillon ochre for their artwork.

Do’s and don’ts when visiting ‘le sentier des ocres’:

• Don’t wear your smartest clothes and shoes. The pigmentation of the rocks wears off on them…
• Don’t eat or smoke during your walk.
• Don’t carve in the rocks or take bits of rock with you.
• Don’t slide off the rocks.
• Leave the vegetation where is… as it is!

• Don’t visit the site at night.
• When you do have stains on clothes and/or shoes: just brush them off. If that doesn’t do the trick, wash with cold water.
• It was pretty crowded when we visited, even on a Monday afternoon in April… I guess you should visit the site as early or as late in the day as possible… and have plenty of patience if you want to take pictures with no one on them!

• Tip to get the perfect picture: you’ll see people taking pictures of the company they’re with… suggest you take a picture of all of them (so everyone can be in the picture) and then ask them to do the same 🙂 (extra tip: I always look for someone who has a good camera to increase the change of them being able to take a decent picture!)
• Visiting early morning or late afternoon will give you beautiful light for your pictures.

After visiting the rocks, we went to the village. It was pleasantly crowded so I guess this place will be extremely busy during the high season and especially in August.

The village itself has lots of ochre-coloured houses. The narrow, winding streets make it very pleasant to have a little walk and there are tons of lovely shops to be visited. Of course there are heaps of souvenir shops… so when still searching for the perfect gift to take home, have a look around!

Itinerary of our ‘Three-village tour in the Luberon’

Oppède-le-Vieux: 10u-12u30

• walk from the car park towards the old village
• morning coffee
• walk around the old village and up to the church
• picknick

Ménèrbes: 13u-15u

• walk around the old village
• enjoy a glass of local wine at the ‘Maison de la truffe et du vin’

Roussillon: 15u30-17u30

• walk around the ochre footpath (we did the short walk – 35 minutes – but we spent more time there as we took plenty of pictures)
• walk around the old village
• do some souvenir shopping
• enjoy an afternoon icecream

Mind: we did this trip on a Monday in April. Besides Roussillon, it was really calm in the villages and on the road. We never had difficulties finding a parking space, which might be just the case during the high season!

Well I hope these posts about the Luberon where helpful to you and they might make your trip a bit easier! If you have any questions, feel free to ask… I will do my best to answer them as correctly as possible 🙂

Love, Kathleen