La Roque Alric is a village perche, a group of houses huddled together against the rock which gives it its name.

It is an example of a castrum – a settlement on elevated ground, originally thus built for the protection of its inhabitants from agression. It is one of the Vaucluse villages “between the earth and the sky”. 

In the heart of Roman Provence, the village is unspoilt by commerce ... there are no shops, even no bar in the village and life continues there on a daily basis as it has for centuries. There is, each morning, the exodus of tractors of the farmers who still live in the village. They descend to the valley below to tend their olive trees and grape vines, following the rhythm of the seasons which culminates in the vendange. 

The picturesque quality of the village as it sits before the backdrop of the Dentelles de Monmirail, gives it a fairytale quality. These mountains are famous for their lacelike peaks and, in almost every book or magazine on the department of Vaucluse, there is a photograph of the village.... even Air France used one such on their Visitez France publications.

At the top of the village, just under the peak of the rock, the ancient Romanesque church clings to the hillside which forms one wall of it. Next to it is the old school where some of the present inhabitants of the village were pupils. It now belongs to a Parisien doctor who uses it as a holiday house. Lower down is the old oil mill, now restored as a family home. At the furthest extremity of the village is the walled cemetery, with its historic chapel of St Michel which dates from the 12th century and its tombstones which are the roll call of the ancient families of La Roque Alric.