West of the gorge: Moustiers-Ste-Marie and Riez
France > Provence > Eastern > Gorges du Verdon > West of the gorge
MOUSTIERS-STE-MARIE is one place to avoid, particularly during high season, when the road west out of the gorge through the town is one long traffic jam and the village a tourist trap. There's a glut of hotels, restaurants, souvenir stands and a veritable surfeit of ateliers making glazed pottery – Moustiers' traditional speciality. The pottery, like the village itself, is pastel-coloured and pretty – and on sale in Liberty or Bloomingdales – but if you want to lug plates home with you, here's your chance. Just outside the village is the hotel-restaurant La Bastide de Moustiers (tel 04.92.70.47.47, www.bastide-moustiers.com; over €150), set in a seventeenth-century country house, with seven-course meals for €49.A more pleasant village is low-key RIEZ, 15km west of Moustiers, where the main business is derived from the lavender fields that cover this corner of Provence. Just over the river on the road south is a lavender distillery making essence for the perfume industry. At the other end of the town, 1km along the road to Digne, is the Maison de l'Abeille (House of the Bee), a research and visitors' centre (daily 10am–12.30pm & 2.30–7pm; free). Visitors can buy various honeys (including the local speciality, lavender honey) and hydromel – the honey alcohol of antiquity made from nectar – and, if you show interest, you'll get an enthusiastic tour. In size, Riez is more village than town, but it soon becomes clear that it was once more influential than it is now. Some of the houses on Grande-Rue and rue du Marché – the two streets above the main allées Louis-Gardiol – have rich Renaissance facades, and the Hôtel de Ville on place Quinquonces is a former episcopal palace. The sixth-century cathedral (Easter to mid-Sept; check with the tourist office for times), which was abandoned 400 years ago, has been excavated just across the river from allées Louis-Gardiol. Beside it is a baptistry (June–Sept Tues & Thurs 10am–noon; €2.30), restored in the nineteenth century but originally constructed, like the cathedral, around 600 AD. If you recross the river and follow it downstream, you'll find the even older and much more startling relics of four Roman columns standing in a field. A rather more strenuous walk, heading first for the clock tower above Grande-Rue and then taking the path past the cemetery and on uphill (leaving the cemetery to your left), brings you to a cedar-shaded platform on the hilltop where the pre-Roman Riezians lived. The only building now occupying the site is the eighteenth-century Chapelle Ste-Maxime, with a gaudily patterned interior. The tourist office is at 4 cours allées Louis-Gardiol (June–Sept Mon–Sat 9am–1pm & 2.30–6.30pm, Sun 9am–1pm; Oct–May Tues–Sat 8am–noon & 1.30–5.30pm; tel 04.92.77.99.09, fax 04.92.77.99.07). For accommodation, there's an executive-style hotel on the other side of the river, the Hôtel Carina (tel 04.92.77.85.43, fax 04.92.77.85.44; €55–70; closed Dec–March), with views and comfort to make up for its lack of character. Alternatively head out of town on the route de Valensole to the excellent-value Château de Pontfrac (tel 04.92.77.78.77, [email protected]; €55–70), offering a swimming pool and access to facilities such as riding stables (bring your own horse). If you want to eat in the village and aren't in a rush, try Le Rempart on 17 rue du Marché, next to the bell tower (tel 04.92.77.89.54); the Provençal and Italian dishes are superb, and a two to three hour meal for most diners seems to be the norm. Lunch menus start at €11, dinners from €15.
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