The Luberon Massif has a maximum altitude of 1 256 m and an area of about 600 km². It is composed of two mountains: the Big Luberon and the Little Luberon, lying in the middle of Provence in the far South of France.

The total number of inhabitants varies greatly between winter and summer, due to a massive influx of tourists during the warm season.

It is a favourite destination for the French High Society and British and American visitors in search of an authentic way of life which disappeared long ago, if it ever existed.

In the 1970s, people came from all over France to "Le Luberon" in search of a communitarian ideal.

The Force de frappe or French strategic nuclear arsenal used to be nearby, underground, on "Le plateau d'Albion" before being dismantled in the late 1980s.

If you're not French, the Luberon was made famous in the last decades, by a series of books by Peter Mayle giving the chronicle of a British expatriate who had settled in the countryside, South of the mountains. The books did for the region what Notting Hill did to the West-London location of the film: sinking the place under an imported sense of typical wonders.

See also

• Alpilles

References

• Mayle, Peter. A year in Provence. New York : Vintage Books, 1991.
• Mayle, Peter. Encore Provence : new adventures in the south of France. New York : Knopf, 1999.
• Mayle, Peter. Toujours Provence. New York : Knopf, 1991

External link

• provence beyond