Why you should visit Roussillon (Provence, France).
I’ve previously written about the tour taking us through some of the prettiest towns in Provence (I’ll include a link to the tour further below). Of those towns, Rousillon was our favorite. Why? It is different than any of the other towns and might just be different than any place you’ve ever been.
What makes Roussillon unique are its oche colours. The earth and buildings have different hues, from dark reds to orange to yellow. They’re stunning. Why the colours? The town sits on one of the world’s largest natural oche deposits.
Oche was used for all kinds of colouring, from painting caves in caveman days to pottery to body paint and tattoos. In the late 1700’s to 1900’s, the textile industry used it to colour clothes and the oche from Rousillon was excavated and exported all over the world. It was also used as a base for paints by artists and house builders. That ended in the mid-1900’s when synthetic pigments took over. That’s when oche excavation in Roussillon ended.
Today you can visit Rousillon and walk on the red earth and in the old quarries where you’ll see a rainbow of colours on cliffs and canyons.
What to See and Do in Roussillon
Walk along the Oche trail
About a 10-minute walk from the center of town (and the town parking) is the Ochre Trail (Sentier des Ocres). It was once a quarry, now it’s a nature park with trails where you can walk among the cliffs enjoying the oche-coloured landscapes. There are 2 trails: one that’s about 30 minutes long, another that’s about 1 hour long. Both a circuitous routes, so either way you’ll end up back at the entrance to the park. Cost to enter the Oche trail; 3.50 Euros (which we think is definitely worth it)
Note: Our tour allowed for a 90 minute lunch stop in Roussillon so we played it safe and did the 30 minute trail.
Walk around Town
The town is Roussillon is all reds. But besides the striking colours, it’s just a pretty place to walk around. If you don’t know where to go just remember to keep going up: first to the main square, Place de la Mairie (Town Hall Square), then up through town, through the arch pictured below (the Beffroi de Roussillon), past more colourful streets and up to the viewpoint at the top. It’s not a difficult walk. From here you’ll have views over town and towards the cliffs where you just visited the Oche trail. In the distance is the white peak of Mont Ventoux (1,912 meters high). In the other direction, looking across the valley, you might see the town of Gordes.
Note: I’ve previously written about Gordes (considered the “Most beautiful small town in the world”) which is about a 10 minute drive away. Gordes is beautiful but it’s just normal coloured stone. It has none of the colours that make Roussillon so striking.
What else to do in Roussillon
Roussillon is a charming town and a good place to just sit on a square and have lunch or a drink. It also has lots of arts and crafts so if that’s your thing you can do some shopping here.
Practical Information for visiting Roussillon
Getting to Roussillon: you can’t get here by public transport, it really is a small town. There best way to explore the region is by car. As mentioned above, the car park is well-situated between the town center and the Oche trail (right here). Roussillon is about 60 km east of Avignon, 100 km east of Nîmes and about 100 km north of Marseille.
A Recommended Tour: If you don’t have a car, we recommend this tour we took. It brought us to 5 villages and historic spots: Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, Gordes, Roussillion, Les Baux de Provence, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and the Pont du Gard.
How much time to spend? I’d suggest doing the 1-hour Oche trail and then visiting the town. In total, I think 2 hours is the maximum amount of time you’ll need to visit Roussillon. But really, if you can, visit Roussillon. It was a highlight in the region for us.
Related: Visiting Fontaine-de-Vaucluse (Provence, France)
Related: 10 Things to Do in Avignon
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