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When the summer lavender flowers, this medieval abbey surrounded by purple fields is a spectacular sight (see Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque).

This village, with its wandering little streets, is made truly remarkable by its chateau, built in the 12th century and still lived in by descendants of the same family. The vaulted rooms, armoury, salons and, especially, the kitchens are extraordinary.

Overhanging the gorges 550 m (1,800 ft) below, Brantes stares across the Toulourenc Valley to Mont Ventoux. Its tiny paved streets and vaulted passages boast a chapel but no shops. It is particularly impressive in March, when the almond trees are in bloom.

The medieval popes’ cathedral has 17th-century alterations but a 13th-century altar.

The relics of St Anne (mother of the Virgin) were discovered on this site in 776, and here they remain, having survived the destruction of the church and its rebuilding from the 11th century on. The two crypts have also survived, containing sarcophagi from early Christian times. The cathedral has 18th-century paintings and a 15th-century stained-glass window of the Tree of Jesse. The 17th-century St Anne Chapel contains what is said to be the saint’s veil, although it’s probably of 9th-century Egyptian origin.

An impressive monastery with elegant gardens and a splendid chapel.

Avignon’s premier showcase for contemporary art.

From the base of grandiose, 230-m (750-ft) high cliffs, Europe’s most powerful spring pumps out the water which creates the River Sorgue. The romance and mystery of the setting (no one has yet found the exact source of the water) attracts millions of visitors every year, as it once attracted 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch (see Fontaine-de-Vaucluse). Downstream of the source, the charming little village celebrates its most famous inhabitant with a museum in one of the houses claimed to have been his. It also boasts an excellent museum dedicated to the history, art and literature of World War II and another equally good one devoted to speleology (caves and caving).

Fashionable folk flock here, and no wonder. The village is perched above the Coulon Valley, and its little houses appear piled on top of one another. In the centre, the chateau oversees the whole with Renaissance dignity.

Second only to the Verdon gorges (see Grand Canyon du Verdon) in dramatic potential, the Nesque gorges run for 20 km (12 miles) between the villages of Villes-sur-Auzon and Monieux. The rocky drop descends more than 300 m (1,000 ft), its sides alternately bare or covered in scrub vegetation. Cut into the cliff, the winding road is definitely not for vertigo sufferers. The Castelleras viewpoint looks onto the 850-m (2,800-ft) Rocher de Cire (Wax Rock – so-called because it is home to millions of bees). This is also the start of a testing walk to the bottom of the gorges, where Chapel St-Michel is dug into the rock.