Perched Villages

Perched Villages

The Haut Vaucluse has a bevy of villages perchés (perched villages). Each is often often wrapped in a wall and crowned with the two strongest assurances of protection, sacred and secular: a steeple and a watchtower. Nowadays many of the hill towns are nearly ghost towns, though more and more are tapping into the tourist boom. Those closest to the coast and to urban centers -- in the Luberon and in Nice's backcountry, in particular -- have become souvenir malls choked with galleries of dubious quality. Yet as the tourist packs rove on in search of authenticity, the other hill towns develop their commerce and find new life. In these, you can still wander aimlessly through the maze of tunnel-like ruelles (alleys) and feel the isolation -- often idyllic, sometimes harsh -- of these eagle's-nest enclaves, high above the world.