Photo : Mathieu BROSSAIS / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Fontaine de Vaucluse
Fontaine-de-Vaucluse is a village in Vaucluse where the spring of the Sorgue gushes out, considered the most important exsurgence in mainland France. It ranks among the largest springs in the world, with an annual flow of the order of 630 to 700 million cubic metres. The underground siphon has been explored to a depth of 308 metres, 223 of them below sea level, at the foot of a limestone cliff of 230 to 240 metres.
The place has a long history. Monks founded a monastery there around 979, and the poet Petrarch made it his favourite residence from 1339. Mirabeau, Chateaubriand and René Char also described it, and its setting fed the Romantic enthusiasm for natural curiosities.
Today, the village of about 585 inhabitants lives from tourism. There are museums, including one devoted to Petrarch, a fifteenth-century paper mill still in operation, craft shops and opportunities for kayaking down the Sorgue.
