Provence

The largest Gothic palace in the world, with 25 rooms open. €16, or €19.50 combined with the Pont Saint-Bénezet; 9am-7pm from July to 1 November and shorter in winter. Renovation runs to spring 2027.

Two waymarked circuits through the old ochre quarries. €3.50, open daily except 25 December and 1 January. Closed at short notice for fire risk or storms, usually announced the evening before.

The Roman aqueduct itself is free to walk to; you pay €9 per vehicle to park and €8 a head for the museum and exhibitions. Site open 8am to midnight; cultural venues shut in winter and on Monday mornings.

Art projected floor to ceiling inside a bauxite quarry. €16.50; 9.30am-7pm in spring and autumn, 9am-7.30pm in July and August, last entry an hour before closing.

A working Cistercian monastery founded in 1148, with the lavender rows everyone photographs in front of it. The monks open it at set hours only and expect silence; book rather than turn up.

Avignon TGV sits outside town, and a shuttle train covers the five minutes to Avignon Centre roughly hourly for a couple of euros. The same TGVs continue to Marseille.

Gordes, Roussillon and Ménerbes are barely served by bus. A car is close to unavoidable if you want more than one village a day.

Both sit on the rail network and within half an hour's drive of the Luberon, which makes them cheaper bases than the villages themselves.

May-June and September: warm, everything open, and either side of the lavender crowd.

November-March is cheapest by a long way, though many village restaurants close for winter.

July, when lavender peaks and the Avignon festival fills every room in the Vaucluse.

Drive into the Luberon early. Gordes from the belvedere before the coaches arrive is the reason to set an alarm.

Sénanque, five minutes down the valley, then on to Roussillon for the ochre trail.

A village square in Bonnieux or Ménerbes. Most kitchens stop taking orders around two.

L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue for the water wheels and the antiques quarter, or Les Baux for the quarry projections.

Back to Avignon for dinner inside the walls, with the papal palace floodlit behind you.

Markets on Thursday and Sunday mornings, with roughly 300 antiques stalls at weekends by the station and much bigger fairs at Easter and around 15 August.

An hour east, where lavender runs to the horizon rather than in a strip. July is the peak, and harvest starts in early August.