The luberon region in June

Hi,
A week and a half? How lucky. You will be able to not miss much with this much time.
Regarding markets, within the Lubéron proper I don't really know, but I strongly recommend going to L'Isle sur Sorgue on a Sunday from Bonnieux, there is a large provençal market and a large antique market at the same time, and the small town is beautiful with many river channels criss-crossing town. You can even wade in the ice-cold river (at a place called Le Partage des Eaux), which can help to beat the summer heat.
As for the Lubéron villages, well, they're all mostly stunning and quite different from each other so you can't go wrong driving around. This said, I have a few recommendations
- Gordes and the Senanque Abbey should not be missed, especially since the lavender will be in bloom by the Abbey. Caveat: go EARLY. Once done, keep going North to Venasque, the road there is stunning (narrow though) and the village is also very strikingly located and little visited. On the way back, take the D4 all the way to Murs for another impressive drive.
- Saignon is also surrounded by lavender fields, to see the best of them, follow D232 from near Bonnieux all the way to Saignon followed by D48 to Auribeau
- The other famous Luberon villages (Roussillon, Menerbes...) are all worth at least passing by and they are close to each other, so it is easy to plan half day trips stringing them together
- I personally do not care for Rustrel and its "colorado", it is a bit out of the way and Roussillon provides enough orange rocks for me.
- For something different, once in Cucuron, I recommend a tour of the Château La Coste vineyard (15 miles south): the domain is basically an outdoor art museum with sculptures from many famous artists. Highly recommended, should be booked in advance.

There are so many things to do I could go on and on, but these are my "highlights" after having lived in the region for a couple years (not anymore sadly).

You are staying in a lovely area. Do see the movie, A Good Year with Russell Crowe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Good_Year. You’ll enjoy and recognize many of the locations when you get there. One particularly memorable visit for us was the winery that his character inherits and buying a bottle of “the secret wine” https://vickiarcher.com/2016/06/location-good-year/. Markets- Bonnieux has a market. But a large one is in Lourmarin on Friday morning https://www.theluberon.com/activities/luberon-markets/lourmarin-market. L'Isle sur Sorgue Is popular on Sunday. We found it very crowded, much bric a brac, tough parking. We enjoyed the smaller markets more. Restaurants-If you are foodies this could be the meal of your vacation, if not your life. Request a table on the terrace across the street from the restaurant. Reservations essential https://www.lacloserieansouis.com/. Another tough table, but worth it, is La Petite Maison right there in Cucuron. If you are into hiking visit this ancient fort http://lefortdebuoux.e-monsite.com/. Best to go in the morning when it is cool. We met a couple from Champagne but otherwise had it to ourselves. We enjoyed visiting this ancient Roman bridge and having a picnic https://www.avignon-et-provence.com/en/monuments/julien-bridge. Oh, and if you are a literature buff, Albert Camus and wife are buried in Lourmarin. We found the gravesites with very fractured French and a map. Just stop in a cafe and ask your server. Enjoy the Luberon!

Thank you both for you great suggestions !
Did either of you travel in the Luberon with children ? My grands will be 11, 8 and 4 !

Nope, no kids for me. Just a word of warning with kids: the roads are very twisty, so plan accordingly if they suffer from motion-sickness. Also, with children, I take back what I said about Rustrel, it will be a fun break from village visits (which the kids might find "samey" after a while).

No experience. If I were to bring kids at that time of year I would rent a villa with a pool and use that as my base rather than staying in 2 small towns. They will likely get bored and doing your sightseeing in the morning, having afternoons by the pool would be ideal.

If you take the advice above about visiting Roussillon, consider taking the kids on the hike/walk through the ochre trail (that's probably not the official name). It doesn't take long, less than an hour as I recall, and the grands should find it fun. (We arranged to arrive early in the day, have coffee and pastries at a cafe, and get on the trail before it was crowded. )

We can also recommend the Carrieres-Lumieres near Les Baux. Hard to describe, but huge images of art works are projected on the limestone walls inside a former quarry, accompanied by music. Their website: http://www.carrieres-lumieres.com/en/whats-on The photos on the website will give you a idea of the scale of the images. Again, not too time-consuming, so the youngsters ought not get bored. The current exhibition is Van Gogh. We have relatively short attention spans in art galleries, but this was fascinating.

Our base was Isle sur la Sorgue mentioned above. The market on Sunday is a hoot; much to see, street entertainment here-and-there, and good food around every corner.

I'm loving these suggestions. Thank you.
We plan on seeing a lot, but chilling out and absorbing the atmosphere at the same time. We picked Cucuron for a full week because it seems like it might be less touristy than other, possibly prettier, villages. I hope we made a good choice....

It's about an hour by car (from Bonnieux), but there is a HUGE Mon market in Forcalquier - it's sprawling and has everything from veggies/meat/cheese/sweets to lots of lavender stuff, honey, soaps, flowers...and lots of 'flea market' stuff like sunglasses and linens and clothing.

You could combine it with a drive around the lavender trail to Valensole, Greoux and my fav - Moustiers Sainte Marie.

Loved Moustiers! and the Gorge drive nearby

I am traveling to Provence and Luberon in August. I am reading all the wonderful recommendations. I am wonering how far of a drive is it to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie from Luberon. Can it be done as a day /overnight trip.?

for ltref - a great resource I use a lot - rome2rio.com - plug in where you're starting from and where you're going to and it'll give you a pretty accurate 'how long will it take to get there' reply, as well as transport options. I put in Luberon to Moustiers and it says just over an hour driving - not including traffic and that's probably using the fastest toll roads.

Nicole, Good to know . Thanks for sharing that. Have you been and do you recommend staying the night there?

Ltref...we stopped in Moustiers as we were doing the lavender trail. We spent over an hour walking around. There was a church or something way up on the cliffs, but we didn’t do that. I suppose you could stay the night. I think it would be quiet in the early evening. I’d probably just do it as an afternoon, especially if you wanted to visit whatever was on that cliff. They also manufacture a certain kind of pottery there (faïence)...they may have a factory you can visit but we didn’t look into it.

Moustiers itself does not need an overnight if coming from the Lubéron: it is close. But going that way opens a land of travel temptation...the Verdon gorges. They deserve the side trip - if you decide to see them, then an overnight in or near Moustiers is recommended as the roads are slow and winding.