Lourmarin lies at the southern foot of the Luberon, where the gorge of the Combe opens onto the plain — a village of fountains, plane trees and golden stone that is one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France, and one of the most loved corners of Provence. Writers settled here, and one of the century’s great ones never left.
I. The village and its market
The streets coil up to a bell tower and a church, past mossy fountains, small squares and the cafés that have made Lourmarin a byword for the good Provençal life. The Friday market is one of the best in the Luberon, spilling along the streets with olives, cheeses, fabrics and the produce of the plain.
“The good Provençal life, distilled into one village of fountains and shade.”
II. The Renaissance château
On a rise at the edge of the village stands the Château de Lourmarin, begun in the fifteenth century and completed as the first Renaissance château in Provence — a courtyard, a great spiral staircase, and rooms now used for concerts and residencies for artists. It looks across the vines to the wall of the Luberon behind.
III. Camus, and the Luberon beyond
The writer Albert Camus bought a house in Lourmarin with his Nobel money and is buried in the village cemetery, simply, under his name. From here the Combe de Lourmarin cuts north through the hills to the perched villages of the central Luberon — Bonnieux, Ménerbes, Roussillon — and the whole of the range opens out.
