Vacances en Luberon: Provence - Name and Occupation

A Hidden Gem in the Heart of Provence

Provence doesn’t need much introduction. Lavender fields, limestone hills, markets that run on their own schedule, and a light that painters have been trying to capture for two centuries. It’s one of those places that lives up to the reputation — not because the reputation is wrong, but because it undersells the specific details that make it what it is.

Reillanne is one of those details. A medieval hilltop village in the Luberon Regional Nature Park, an hour from Aix-en-Provence and far enough from the tourist trail that it still belongs to the people who live there. The streets are narrow, the stone is old, and the pace is exactly what it looks like from the outside.

Vacances en Luberon sits in the middle of it. A collection of restored historic holiday homes centred around a 12th-century notary house that has been standing since before most European nations existed in their current form. Rixt Ferkranus and her partner restored it, opened it to guests, and built something that works precisely because it doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is.

Escape to Provence: The 12th-Century Legacy

The B&B

The 12th-century notary house is the centrepiece. Stone walls, original features, rooms that have been restored carefully rather than renovated aggressively. The approach throughout is preservation over modernisation — keeping what makes the building itself while making it comfortable enough to actually stay in.

The surrounding properties are the same. Each one is individually designed to reflect the character of the region. Thick walls that keep the summer heat out. Shuttered windows. Terracotta floors. Gardens that look like they grew rather than were planted.

Guests have access to everything the Luberon offers — and it offers quite a lot. The morning markets in the nearby villages are the obvious starting point. Apt on Saturday, Lourmarin on Friday, Bonnieux on Friday morning. Fresh produce, local cheese, bread that hasn’t been sitting since dawn, and rosé that costs less than you’d expect and tastes better than it should.

The lavender fields peak in July. The Luberon plateau turns purple in a way that’s photogenic from a distance and genuinely overwhelming up close. The hiking trails through the park are well-maintained and range from easy valley walks to serious ridge routes with views across to the Alps on a clear day.

The Luberon is also cycling country — the roads are quiet enough outside of August, the gradients are manageable on the valley floors, and the villages are close enough together that a day’s ride covers several stops worth making.

A Journey from the Netherlands to France

Rixt grew up in the Netherlands. The move to Provence was not impulsive — it was the kind of decision that takes years to become inevitable. The hustle of city life, the deadlines, the pace that doesn’t vary — at some point it stops working and something else starts pulling.

For Rixt, that something was Reillanne. The village, the house, the idea of building a life around preservation and hospitality in a place that moves at a different speed. She and her partner restored the properties themselves, learning the specific requirements of 12th-century stonework as they went.

The interview covers the full story — why Provence, why Reillanne, what the restoration involved, and what daily life looks like when you trade a Dutch city for a medieval hilltop village in the south of France. It’s a practical conversation as much as an inspirational one. Rixt is specific about what works, what’s difficult, and what she’d do differently.

The short answer to whether it was worth it is visible in everything she’s built.

Interview

Vacances en Luberon B&B + Gites – INTERVIEW: Rixt Ferkranus

Reillanne, Provence, France

The region around Reillanne is one of the most varied in southern France. The Luberon park covers 185,000 hectares of forest, garrigue, and agricultural land. The villages within it — Gordes, Roussillon, Ménerbes, Bonnieux — are among the most visited in France for good reason. Each one is distinct, each one has its own market, its own light, its own particular version of Provençal life.

The food is the other argument. Olive oil from local mills. Tomatoes that taste like tomatoes. Tapenade made from olives grown in sight of where you’re eating. Lamb from the Luberon plateau. Cheese from the farms you can see from the road. The Mediterranean diet is not an abstraction here — it’s just what’s available and what people eat.

Come in May or September if you can. The light is good, the crowds are manageable, and the lavender is either about to bloom or just finished. Either way, the Luberon in those months is as close to perfect as a landscape gets.

Reservations: vacances-en-luberon.com