Moustiers-Sainte-Marie

About this place

Moustiers-Sainte-Marie is a small village in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department of southeast France, at the entrance to the Verdon Gorge and close to Lake Sainte-Croix, about 23 km east of Valensole and 92 km northeast of Marseille in a straight line. It has about 680 residents and belongs to the «Most Beautiful Villages of France» association. The village is known throughout Europe for the beauty and quality of its faience. In the 17th century it became a centre of tin-glazed pottery thanks to plentiful clay, water and wood, and the Clérissy family became famous for their white glaze and blue decoration, which reached aristocratic courts across Europe. The village is built on terraces about a hundred metres up the side of a limestone cliff, and the Adou river springs from between the cliffs, making a small waterfall and a torrent that runs through the houses. Stone houses with tiled roofs pile up beneath two towering cliffs, and at twilight the south-facing cliff glows, spreading a pink light over the village. Visitors wander the stone lanes and little bridges over the torrent, visit pottery workshops and the faience museum, and some climb the long stairway up the cliff for a view over the village and valley. It makes a good base for the Verdon Gorge and nearby Lake Sainte-Croix.