Where mealtimes are a sacred ritual of hearty food and long conversation, ancient châteaux pepper the landscapes, and a glass of fine wine is never too far away.
read moreProvence, the sun-warmed heart of southern France, is renowned for its honey-stoned hilltop villages, lavender plateaux and slow, market-led way of life, making it one of the country’s most romantic destinations. Our collection of luxury properties offers the perfect combination of privacy, comfort and unhurried style. From restored stone mas tucked into the olive groves of Les Alpilles to bastides perched high above the Luberon valley, every villa has been chosen for its sense of place.
Luxury Provence villa life offers a freedom that hotels simply cannot match. Wake to the scent of pine and lavender, take breakfast on a shaded terrace, and spend the day moving between weekly markets, vineyards and the cool stone of a Cistercian abbey before returning to your own pool and a long table laid for dinner under the plane trees. Whether it is a family summer, a friends’ gathering or a quieter week à deux, a villa gives you the space, the rhythm and the chance to live like a local.
Each Villa Collective property is handpicked for its location, character and comfort. From farmhouses among the vines of the Vaucluse to elegant houses in the Alpilles, our portfolio of luxury Provence villas ensures a truly memorable stay. A Provençal holiday is not only about the lavender, but it is also about long lunches of rosé and tapenade, drives down plane-tree avenues, and the soft golden light Cézanne spent a lifetime chasing. With a luxury Provence villa as your base, you will have the perfect setting for an unforgettable holiday.
Provence, in the south-east of France, is not one landscape but several stitched together: the wooded ochre massif of the Luberon, the bone-white limestone teeth of Les Alpilles, the high lavender plateaux of Valensole and Sault, and the deep turquoise canyon of the Gorges du Verdon. To the south-west, the watery flatness of the Camargue gives way to vineyards and the Mediterranean. What ties it together is the planting, olive groves, cypresses, vines and lavender, and a chain of honey-coloured hilltop villages whose weekly markets still set the rhythm of the week.
Airports: Marseille Provence (MRS) is closest to the Luberon, Les Alpilles and the Camargue; Nice Côte d’Azur (NCE) serves the eastern reaches. The Avignon TGV station offers fast direct trains from Paris and seasonal Eurostar services from London.
Region: Provence covers the départements of Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, Var and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, stretching from the Rhône in the west to the foothills of the Alps in the east.
Main Towns: Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Arles, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and the hilltop village of Gordes are the principal bases for exploring the region.
Weather: Spring (April-May): bright and green, 16-22°C. Summer (June-August): hot, dry and reliably sunny, often 28-34°C. Autumn (September-October): softer and golden, 18-25°C. Winter (November-March): cool and clear, 5-13°C. Lavender season runs from mid-June to mid-July on the Valensole plateau, holding later into August at the higher altitudes around Sault.
Distances from Marseille Airport: Aix-en-Provence 30 minutes; Arles 45 minutes; Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 45 minutes; Avignon 1 hour; the Luberon villages 1 hour 15 to 1 hour 30; the Gorges du Verdon around 2 hours.
Food & Drink: Expect the cooking of the sun, ratatouille, tapenade, daube provençale and, on the coast, bouillabaisse. The wines are mostly drunk young and cold: the pale dry rosés of Côtes de Provence, and the deeper, more structured reds and rosés of Bandol.
Flight Time from UK: Around 2 hours direct to Marseille (MRS) or Nice (NCE), making a Provence holiday wonderfully accessible.
Time Zone: GMT+1, just one hour ahead of the UK.
Half the pleasure of a Provence villa holiday is the slow circuit of its hilltop villages and weekly markets. In the Luberon, Gordes is the most photographed, a tall tiered village of pale limestone, while Roussillon glows red, yellow and orange from the ochre cliffs it stands on. A little south, Ménerbes, Bonnieux and Lacoste sit in a near-perfect line along the massif’s north flank, each with its own quiet character. The markets give the week its shape: L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue on Sunday, where food, flowers and several hundred antiques dealers spread across the canals and squares; Apt on Saturday, famous since the Middle Ages for its candied fruits; and Lourmarin on Friday, generally regarded as the most beautiful in the southern Luberon.
Provence rewards a slow, varied week. Visit the twelfth-century Abbaye de Sénanque, folded into a valley below Gordes and framed by its lavender beds in early summer, and time a sunrise on the Valensole plateau when the rows stretch unbroken to the horizon. Further east, the Gorges du Verdon, the deepest canyon in France, is best explored by kayak or small electric boat from the Lac de Sainte-Croix, with the dramatic Route des Crêtes tracing its rim. In Aix-en-Provence, follow the Route Cézanne past the fields and farmhouses the painter spent a lifetime rendering, and in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence visit Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, the old monastery where Van Gogh painted The Starry Night.
Add an afternoon at a Bandol or Côtes de Provence estate for a tasting among the vines, build the week around the weekly markets of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Apt and Lourmarin, and leave time for the simple pleasures: a long lunch under a plane tree, a swim in the cool green water of a river, an aperitif as the lavender gives up its scent to the cooling air. A villa holiday in Provence lets you experience all of this at your own pace, returning from each excursion to your private pool, shaded terrace and the unhurried comfort of your own retreat.
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