Lorgues

A hilly Provençal town to experience and to taste

Lorgues is situated in the department of the Var, between Vidauban and Draguignan and between the Mediterranean Sea and the Gorges of the Verdon. It's a hilly commune with a past that goes back to prehistoric times.

The commune is vast and stretches over approximately 64 kilometres. Its countryside is rich and varied, surrounded by vineyards, olive groves, wheat fields and truffle fields.
It is also bordered by woods and rivers. Wine-making accounts for a great deal of the town's economic activity with its fourteen wine estates, including the famous Château de Berne.

The choice of its tourist activities is very diverse with its location between the sea and the Verdon only 19 kilometres away. Lorgues is a town with a heritage that can be visited and admired in its religious edifices, the remains of the fortified surrounding walls, its olive oil mills, the ancient and bourgeoise façades of the houses along the squares shaded by plane trees or along the small, typically Provençal streets. Lorgues is a place to experience, and to taste, a place that lives again since the 1980s thanks to tourism and the local products such as the wine, the production of which plays an essential role.

Lorgues' past goes back to prehistoric times, as two dolmens can attest. Early on in its history it was a Ligurian city colonized by the Romans. It survived the Barbarian and Saracen invasions in the early medieval period thanks to its ramparts and, around 1156, the Knights Templar established themselves here, building new ramparts of which we can still see some of the remains today.

Starting in the 11th century, chapels, schools and convents were built by the many brotherhoods that took root in the town. Following that, the 13th and 14th centuries were periods that saw much construction: the most beautiful monuments and neighbourhoods of the town sprung up at that time, such as the Saint Martin Collegiate Church, the Cours de la République, the main avenue, the beautiful bourgeois houses, a traditional washhouse and the fountains.

On November 11, 1948, the town was decorated with the Croix de Guerre 39-45 (the War Cross 1939-1945).

In the area around Lorgues: