Gordes is a very beautiful old village, perched on the southern edge of the high Plateau de Vaucluse. The stone buildings built in tight against the base of the cliffs and those perched on the rocks above, including the 12th-century castle, are made of an beige stone that glows orange in the morning sun. The view from the village is a southern panorama out across fields and forests and small perched villages to the Montagne du Luberon.
Vaucluse (84220)
Population: 2,031
Altitude: 373 m
Also: | Bories | Col de Murs | Mur de la Peste (plague) | Most Beautiful Villages |
Nearby: | Avignon 35 km | Bonnieux 14 km | Carpentras 35 km | Cavaillon 17 km | Fontaine-de-Vaucluse 15 km | Goult 7 km | Javon Chateau 22 km | Lagnes 12 km | Lourmarin 26 km | Murs 9 km | Roussillon 10 km | Saumane-de-Vaucluse 16 km | Senanque Abbey 6 km | Ventoux Mountain |
Hotels near Gordes: | Gordes | 7 km Goult | 9 km Murs | 10 km Roussillon | 12 km Lagnes | 14 km Bonnieux | 15 km Fontaine-de-Vaucluse |
Gordes is classed as one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France.
Behind the village (to the north), small roads lead into the rocks and valleys and forests of the Plateau de Vaucluse, with the picturesque Abbaye de Sénanque only 4 km away, yet isolated in its little valley.
Beauty is a Pain. Take a trip to Gordes in the winter or early spring and you'll see the beautiful village, the amazing views and the lovely, rocky and forested countryside. You'll also see several large hotels, neat and discreet, but indicative of the disadvantage of any beautiful site: the summer crowds are thick here with a very large number of tourists.
Gordes is also a popular summer residence for artists and media and film people from Paris. Victor Vasarely has a Didactic Museum here as an extention to the Vasarely Foundation in Aix-en-Provence. The painter André Lhote also lived in Gordes, from 1939-1948.
Bories
Gordes is in a region of the Vaucluse with many of the interesting dry-stone buildings called bories. There are several in the countryside in the immediate vicinity of the village, including this famous trois soldats (left), and the large one in our [Photo 4].
Just beside Gordes is the Village de Bories, an ancient hamlet of all dry-stone buildings: an incredible collection of houses, walls, barns and a variety of other enclosures, including a period silk-making shop.
* Village des Bories: open 09:00-17:30; about 5 euros per adult
History
Name
First record, 4th century: Vorda (from the name of the early inhabitants: Vordensès)
1031: Castrum Gordone
Prehistoric: nearby neolithic remains were found at Grande-Côte and Roques.
Gallo-Roman: Numerous Roman and pre-Roman artifacts found here and nearby include amphors, columns, thermal baths, furniture and tombes carved in solid rock and even skeletons.
Medieval: Gordes was a Simiane fief, eventially passing to the fiefs of Soubise and then Condé (in the 18th century). During the Wars of Religion, Gordes successfully withstood a siege by the Baron of Adrets. Gordes was a center of wool and leather industries in the 17th and 18th centuries, including weaving, carding and tanning. In 1886, part of the village was destroyed by an earthquake, which tended to hasten the already declining local industries.
Office de Tourisme
Tel : 04 90 72 02 75; Fax: 04 90 72 02 26
Email: office.gordes@wanadoo.fr
Dates
Market day: Tuesday
Every July - Festival provençal- théâtre, jazz, musique classique
Every Aug - Soirées d'été- Théâtre, jazz, musique classique
Fête St. Firmin: Sunday following 11 Oct
Fête de Vin (Côtes du Ventoux): 13-14 July
Fête votive Imberts: 3rd Sunday Sept
Light shows and concerts at the château or abbey: end May to early Sept
Olive Oil Mills (List of Mills - 84)
Clos des Jeannons Oil Mill - Moulin du Clos des Jeannons
Location: La Haut Tourteron
Tel: 0490 726 835
Olive oil available.
Transportation Gordes
Bus
- Cavaillon - Gordes - Roussillon Bus 15.3
- Vaucluse bus line 15.3 connects Cavaillon, Robion, Coustellet, Cabrières-d'Avignon, Gordes and Roussillon.
At Coustellet, this line connects with Line 15.1 (Avignon - Apt).
At Cavaillon, this line connects with Line 7 (Avignon - Cavaillon).
A list of schedules for the Vaucluse bus line are at the bottom of the Vaucluse department transport page (http://www.vaucluse.fr/1119-recherche-de-lignes.htm") - click on the link 15.3 Cavaillon Gordes Roussillon to download the bus schedule PDF file.
- Department 84, Vaucluse Buses
- See Beyond's Bus Schedules Page 2: Vaucluse Department for downloading Vaucluse bus-lines map [Plan global des lignes] and bus-line schedules [pdf for each line] (link for PDF files).
• Avignon has train or bus connections to Aix-en-Provence, Arles, Nîmes, Saint Remy-de-Provence, Paris.
• Cavaillon has bus connections to Aix-en-Provence, Arles, Saint Remy-de-Provence.
• Pertuis has bus connections to Aix-en-Provence and Marseille.
Sports
Cycling
- Station Service des Lavandes
- Location: rte Gordes, les Imberts
- Fax: 0490 76 71 41
Hiking
Maps
IGN (1/25,000) #3142 OT "Cavaillon, Fontaine-de-Vaucluse"
Didier Richard (1/50,000) #27 "Ventoux"