The calades and vaulted passages below the castle

Inside the village, Gordes is a spiral of calades — steep, ribbed cobbled ramps — that wind down from the castle square between houses built straight out of the same limestone. Several of them run under the buildings as vaulted passages, so a two-minute walk gives you open lane, dark tunnel and framed exit in sequence.

This is the intimate half of Gordes and the one most visitors skip. The passages act as natural frames: place a couple at the far end of a vault and the arch does the composition for you, with the bright lane beyond as the light source. Out in the open, the dry-stone walls, the wooden doors and the flights of steps give background after background within fifty metres of each other.

Before ten is the working window. The day-trip coaches arrive mid-morning and the village becomes a single slow file through lanes barely two people wide; parking in and around the castle square turns into a contact sport at the same moment. Early light slants down the east-facing calades, and the vaults hold soft reflected light all day, which makes them a genuine midsummer option when the belvedere is unusable.

Practical: the calades are steep and their ribbed cobbles are punishing in heels — flat shoes between frames, honestly advised in advance. Everything here is somebody's front door, so keep voices down early and do not block thresholds. The Château de Gordes on the square houses exhibitions with their own ticket and hours; the lanes themselves are free and open.