The Most Beautiful Places in Vaucluse
8 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Vaucluse are Roman Theatre of Orange, Pont Saint-Bénézet and Triumphal Arch of Orange. The list covers 8 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Vaucluse is the heart of Provence between the Rhône and the Luberon, watched over by the bare summit of Mont Ventoux. Two moments of history made it unlike anywhere else in France. Under Rome, Orange was the colony of Arausio and kept its theatre and arch almost intact; in the fourteenth century the popes moved to Avignon and turned a river town into the capital of Western Christendom. Around them, hilltop villages of dry stone, lavender fields and ochre cliffs complete the picture.
The Roman Theatre of Orange keeps its great stage wall standing to its full height, a façade Louis XIV is said to have called the finest wall in his kingdom, and the Triumphal Arch at the town's northern edge still carries its carved battle scenes. In Avignon the Palais des Papes, among the largest Gothic buildings in Europe, rises like a fortress above the Rhône.
The countryside is just as varied. At Fontaine de Vaucluse the Sorgue bursts from the foot of a sheer cliff, the most powerful spring in France and a place Petrarch made his home. Gordes climbs its hill in tiers of pale stone, while below it the Cistercian abbey of Sénanque, founded in the twelfth century, sits in a narrow valley among rows of lavender. At Roussillon old quarries have exposed cliffs of ochre in every shade from yellow to deep red.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Roman Theatre of Orange | Roman theatre | ✓ |
| 2 | Pont Saint-Bénézet | Bridge | ✓ |
| 3 | Triumphal Arch of Orange | Triumphal arch | ✓ |
| 4 | Fontaine de Vaucluse | Karst spring | |
| 5 | Palais des Papes | Palace | ✓ |
| 6 | Gordes | Most beautiful village | |
| 7 | Sénanque Abbey | Abbey | |
| 8 | Ocres de Roussillon | Quarry |
01 Roman Theatre of Orange
Théâtre antique d'Orange
France44.136° N 4.809° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by fietzfotos from Pixabay The Roman Theatre of Orange is one of the best-preserved Roman theatres anywhere, and its great stage wall still stands to its full original height. It was built early in the 1st century AD under Augustus for the Roman colony of Arausio, founded by veterans of the Second Legion.
Did you know? In the Middle Ages the Princes of Orange turned the stage building into a fortified outpost of their castle on the hill above.
02 Pont Saint-Bénézet
Pont d'Avignon
France · 39 km from Nîmes43.954° N 4.805° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Rolf Kranz · CC BY-SA 4.0 The bridge in the nursery song ends in mid-river. Four stone arches leave the Avignon bank of the Rhône and simply stop, with a small chapel perched on one of the piers and the far shore out of reach. What remains is a fragment of a crossing that once ran for about 900 metres to Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.
Did you know? Wood found under the surviving piers was radiocarbon-dated to AD 290–530, feeding a long debate over whether a Roman bridge stood here first.
03 Triumphal Arch of Orange
Arc antique d'Orange
France44.142° N 4.805° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Xavier D'ABRIGEON · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Triumphal Arch of Orange is one of the best-preserved Roman arches anywhere, and the oldest surviving example of the three-bay design later used for the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Arch of Constantine in Rome itself.
Did you know? The Second Legion is identified in the battle reliefs by its emblem, a capricorn, carved on an officer's shield on the north face.
04 Fontaine de Vaucluse
Exsurgence de Fontaine-de-Vaucluse
France43.918° N 5.133° E
Image by Hans from Pixabay At the head of a closed valley in the Vaucluse hills, a sheer limestone wall about 230 metres high rises above a round, dark pool. That pool is the mouth of the largest spring in France and the birthplace of the river Sorgue.
Did you know? Cousteau came back in 1955 and reached 74 metres, the practical limit of diving on compressed air.
05 Palais des Papes
France · 39.1 km from Nîmes43.951° N 4.808° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Lens_and_Light from Pixabay For most of the fourteenth century the centre of Western Christendom was not Rome but a rock above the Rhône.
Did you know? Papal bureaucracy grew fast here: by 1316 the curia counted around 500 people, and more than a thousand lay officials worked in the palace.
06 Gordes
France43.911° N 5.200° E
- one of the most beautiful villages
Jean-Pol GRANDMONT · CC BY 4.0 Gordes is built like an amphitheatre turned inside out.
Did you know? Beneath the Palais Saint-Firmin lie rock-cut cellars with cisterns, underground stairways and old olive-oil mills, listed as a historic monument in 1998.
07 Sénanque Abbey
Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque
France43.928° N 5.187° E
Image by WikiImages from Pixabay Sénanque Abbey sits at the bottom of a narrow, wooded valley near Gordes, in the hills of Provence, and in early summer it becomes one of the most photographed images in France: a grey stone Romanesque church and cloister rising behind rows of purple lavender.
Did you know? The warming room, the only heated space in the monastery, also served as the scriptorium where monks copied manuscripts.
08 Ocres de Roussillon
Le sentier des ocres
France43.900° N 5.298° E
Image by Hans from Pixabay Just outside the hilltop village of Roussillon in Provence, the ground turns every shade from pale yellow through orange to deep red.
Did you know? Beyond paint, Vaucluse ochre became an important ingredient in the early rubber industry.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Vaucluse?
- On our list, Roman Theatre of Orange ranks first, followed by Pont Saint-Bénézet and Triumphal Arch of Orange.
- Why did the popes live in Avignon?
- From 1309 to 1377 the papacy resided in Avignon instead of Rome, starting with Clement V amid conflict in Italy and close ties to the French crown. Seven popes reigned there and built the Palais des Papes.
- Why are the cliffs of Roussillon red?
- The hills around Roussillon contain thick deposits of ochre, sand coloured by iron oxides. The pigment was quarried for centuries, and the quarrying left the bright cliffs of the Sentier des Ocres.
- Where does the water at Fontaine de Vaucluse come from?
- It is a karst spring: rain and snow falling on the limestone plateaus of Vaucluse, Mont Ventoux and the Monts de Vaucluse sink underground and resurface here as the river Sorgue. Divers and robots have explored the flooded shaft to great depth without reaching its bottom.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Vaucluse?
- In our collection, the places in Vaucluse are most often karst springs (1), abbeys (1), palaces (1) and bridges (1).
- How many places are on this list in Vaucluse?
- The list covers 8 places.