Moustiers-Ste-Marie is a lovely village, in a gorgeous setting. It has a lot of history and since 1981 Moustiers Sainte-Marie has been listed as one of the most beautiful village of France. The church, the old village walls, the chapels, the aqueduct, the fountains represent an alliance of water and stone.
The nearest city to Moustiers is Nice which can be reached from Paris in 6 hours by train. And from Nice it is a 2 hours to reach the village. Overall it is quite a long trip and would advised to do a day trip here. Nearby Nice area, there are so many sights and attractions that it would be a waste to do a short trip.
 

The moment we entered the village, I felt love-at-the-first-sight, again.

Moustiers Sainte-Marie (or simply Moustiers) is located at the entrance of the Gorges du Verdon. The good geographic location has attracted many tourists to the village. The village clings a hundred or so metres up the side of a limestone cliff. Quite magnificent to see it with real eyes.

The village sits astride a rushing mountain stream that divides the two halves with a narrow rocky canyon.

Above the village, the center piece is a 12th-century Notre-Dame church,behind the ruins of the ancient defensive walls. The church has been beautifully restored in 1928, topped by a four-level Lombard Romanesque (Italianate) bell tower.
 

Moustiers has been the centre of pottery trade, especially “faience” ceramics, for centuries.

The whole village is packed full of “faience” shops, very few normal shops.

 

The center of the village, quite tourist oriented and looks prosperous to me.

Interesting, that’s the place I wanted to visit… Absolutely beautiful.


I wonder if the rocks ever fell down from the cliff all these years?



About 15 minutes later, we reached the main road, which looks modernized.


Our hotel, Le Relais is located just on the main road. We found it without many hassles.
 

The best thing is, our hotel room is facing this side. Whenever we looked out from our room, this postcard scene we would get to see.

And that’s the scene on our left hand side.
 

Our room, old yet charming…

There is a balcony in our room, with absolutely fantastic view.

Sitting on the balcony, I could see that everyone who looked up to us in our room, their eyes were full of envious, haha…

When I was sitting on the balcony, I noticed there is a golden star hangs on a long chain suspended between 2 cliffs. According to the legend, during the Crusades, the knight Bozon de Blacas held prisoner by the Saracens vowed to hang a star over the village on his return. No one knows how it was originally hung there. The original star and chain have been replaced several times. The current star is about 50 years old.Cool.


 

The owner didn’t even bother to follow me when I went upstairs to take a look of more of her display. So I could take my own sweet time to admire them, also, to take some photos of the display.

 
Moustiers has many cats. Those cats walked around the village like it’s nobody business. This cat, she won’t even lift her eyes a bit to check who was disturbing her. Seeing this facial expression, I think I knew what’s in his mind.


 That’s the kind of front door I admire….

 

  

The time was nearly 5.30 pm by then, but we still walked like a turtle towards the old church built on the cliff.

A walk up to the chapel has given us a fantastic view…
 
 

 The stone path is very slippery. William and I should have worn the sport shoes instead of convenient slippers…sigh.

 

 For husband and Vincent who did wear the sport shoes, they were ok to walk on this slippery path. 

 

Excellent view of the village. This chapel is called Notre-Dame de Beauvoir chapel, sitting high in the notch above the village.

 

 
The history of the chapel dates back to the time of Charlemagne in 8th century, and was restored in the 12th and 16th centuries. 

So warm, so beautiful….

 

The big waterfall next to our hotel….A romantic restaurant for dining. Judging from its relatively high class setting, we think the price is at high end too. Old-husband-old-wife like us didn’t want to spend too lavishly on this. 

 

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