Parc Naturel Regional du Luberon

The Luberon is a massif in central Provence in the south of France. It has a maximum elevation of 1,256 metres and an area of about 600 square kilometres . It is composed of three mountain ranges: the Lesser Luberon , the Greater Luberon and the Eastern Luberon . The valleys north and south of them contain a number of towns and villages as well as agricultural land. The total number of inhabitants varies greatly between winter and summer, due to a massive influx of tourists during the warm season. It is a favourite destination for French high society and British and American visitors because of the pleasant and picturesque towns and villages, comfortable way of life, agricultural wealth, historical and cultural associations , and hiking trails. In the 1970s, people came from all over France to the Luberon in search of a communitarian ideal. The Force de frappe or French strategic nuclear arsenal used to be nearby, underground, on the Plateau d'Albion before being dismantled in the late 1980s. Now, the underground site where the missile controls were located is a public multidisciplinary laboratory of the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, the Low Noise Underground Laboratory of Rustrel, Pays d'Apt.In the last two decades the Luberon has become known in the English-speaking world especially through a series of books by British author Peter Mayle chronicling his life as an expatriate settled in the Luberon village of Ménerbes. These are titled A Year in Provence, Toujours Provence, and Encore Provence. Another of Mayle's books, a novel set in the Luberon, was made into a film called A Good Year directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe and filmed in the region. The Luberon is often incorrectly advertised as the Lubéron in an effort to attract foreign tourists and local Parisians, although some dictionaries justify that the two spellings are interchangeable.
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