You know that France Countryside is beautiful. Proeminent on that, there is an association to preserve and promote the best villages. It has something like 130 members and rules are very strict. See a map at  http://www.villagesdefrance.free.fr/dept/page_vaucluse.htm

Departement du Vaucluse, which is our   area of Provence  on an administrative standpoint  boasts having 7 of them. They are Seguret which is more in the North, Venasque, Gordes, Roussillon, Menerbes, Lourmarin and Ansouis. So most are in Luberon and very close from us.

Gordes, one of "Les Plus beaux Villages de France".

Maurice Chabert, the smart Gordes Mayor is at the head of  the “Les Plus beaux Villages de France”  Association. He deserves it. Needless to say that Gordes has to be and is very well maintained  in all respects.

I am not going to repeat the content of a your guidebook, which says a lot.

Just a few advices :

- For parking, the best is the one on the road going up to Murs. It is 200 metres from main square on the left after the hospital.

- The most exciting place is the view on the right before arriving in the village. There people are so amazed that they rush out of their cat to make pictures and when they come back all their valuable stuff is gone… So, be careful. They are shrewd and they have a  lot of potential preys (in fact they look like you and not like outright bandits). You can easily park on the small square just below the place.

- A good idea is to walk down the “calades” (stone-paved narrow streets). Nice view. Like in the Middle Ages.

- Restaurants and shops like  most highly touristic places. Unequal in quality. For the restaurants, you must be very careful. See our list of recommendations.  The inside of the church and very much advertised Village des Bories have a secondary  interest (only if you have plenty of time). If you visit Musée Pol Mara ( interesting modern paintings mostly made of collage) you will also appreciate the decoration of the Renaissance Castle. (Hey, you save a trip to the Loire Valley Castles !).  Everything is in a good shape. And … temperature is cool.

- There is a way to visit Gordes by car. If you don’t have a map, you’re going to get lost immediately. We have a map for you : Very good spots for views, a lot of Bories everywhere.

- When you are in Gordes, you can think of going to Senanque Abbey. It is fine just for the scenic road. But there, if you stop, the visit takes at least one hour.

What is the reason why so many tourists come over to Provence and Luberon ?

You, dynamic Tourists who want to have the best of your time,  like or even love France  : Landscapes have a unique variety, climate is mostly enjoyable,  a large concentration of historical spots, you get a lot of unspoiled traditional places like in the old times, cost of living is finally not so high and, important point, the country is (mostly) safe. A last point : Local people in general are not at the level of the London exquisite politeness but the French,  besides their natural indifference,  will finally behave nicely with you, when you are not cheerfully welcome. So it’s good.

For a foreign visitor, in France there are many, many things to do :

Seen from my viewpoint , Paris, of course the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, Mont Saint Michel, the Loire castles, wine tasting in Burgundy, Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix, Côte d’Azur, enjoy good food….and …Provence.

Provence is unique in the unique. First impression : Light and Air Quality. You breath. Second impression : You are “really off”, on vacation. You are quick to forget all the difficulties of hard life. Then, if you are a bit organized, there are a large quantity of things to do. An advice : Don’t follow the crowds, select the best for yourselves with the time you have and don’t hurry-up. Until now, we strived our best to be helpful with our guests to take the most of their visit with us by preparing listings of things to do nurtured with our guests feed-backs : Best restaurants, best visits, potential problems etc … The aim is always : you spend 2, 4 or 7 days with us, What is the best you can do ?

Our website was not too bad but I knew for a while something had to be done to improve communication and feed-back. So at the end of January 2009, I started to build by myself and from zero this new website. Fortunately, there are fantastic tools and you don’t need anymore to be an expert to do something square. Anyway be indulgent, this is a trial, but with passion and tenacity it will get somewhere. So this new website, you have understood, is just to explain better who we are, what we are doing, what you can expect from us, what will be you environment and finally just to find the right ingredients for a perfect visit to Provence.

You might be curious to know a little bit who we are ? and your Mas des Etoiles.

First, we are both French, although Annette was born in Argentina and had an agitated life between an English College in Buenos Ayres ( The sisters taught her how to resist the appetance of sharks when swimming in the waters of the British Empire, you don’t learn that in French schools, do you ?) , horse driving in the Pampa, asados and also a few years of school in the Boston Massachussets area. As a result, I have to endure a much fighting spirit. After getting married in Palermo Chico, we mostly lived in Paris and the North of France (Lille) where was the original families centerpoint.

For us,  Life is a succession of projects (with variable success) and maybe Provence is the right one at the right time, we don’t know. In fact, we did not arrive here like that : We considered several places : New England, San Diego, Seattle, South Corsica, The Loire Valley and Provence. We selected Provence because, as many people from the North,we are attracted by Sun and Heat. Also the relative proximity with our kids and children. And it came to be Gordes, one of the best well-preserved villages in France ( In fact, for me personnaly the proximity of a nice golf course and an affordable piece of land  !)

Mas des Etoiles ( A Mas is a kind of old farm) is not the oldest XVII’s century manor in the area.

We moved to Provence in 2002. With Annette’s talents for Interior design and a good local architect, my taste for gardening, the advices of an excellent landscape architect we built the house and started the B&B (Thank you to our first guests) in Spring 2004. Now we are on our 6th year, already. Our house is like a very old one. But when you have lived in America you need everything to be ultra-convenient. So it  has,   besides a fancy Provence traditional decor,  the most modern outfits possible (air cooling by the floor, biological swimming pool etc …) Our location has a lot of advantages as we are close from Gordes center- 4 miles – , but not in the crowd. Most excellent visiting sites are within a 30 minutes drive. You can hike just outside. And all others : One hour maximum. You will not be anytime like driving between San Francisco and Yosemite ! Most of the time 10-20 minutes. This is a great thing. Our guests come, as we like it, of course from France and Belgium, our natural territories, but also as we like it from many many countries. We knew well a few nationalities for instance the USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, Germany, Italy etc … It is always easy to find a common point to start with and develop empathy. But we learnt to know and to enjoy very much citizens for instance of Israel, ZA, Romania, Japan, HK, and the list is long. All these nationalities are “fantastic” to meet.

Enough talking. What we want is you to be well here, Photos will speak by themselves. Your stay with us will make the rest. If you think close of all that, you are sincerely WELCOME in our house

Annette &  Francois

Welcome to Mas des Etoiles in Gordes, Luberon, Provence. This is our new website which will make a jump in Mas des Etoiles communication.
We have adopted a “blog approach”which will enable to update the content on a regular basis and create a communication with our guests.
It will be in several languages but for the beginning we intend to mix French and English as most of our environment at least reads English.