Moustiers-Sainte-Marie and its star

Moustiers is built into the notch where a torrent comes out of the limestone, so the village climbs in tiers of pale stone and terracotta roofs with a waterfall running through the middle of it. Slung between the two cliffs above, on a chain that crosses the whole ravine, hangs a gilded five-pointed star — a local tradition going back centuries, repaired and rehung many times, and unlike anything else in a French village.

The walk up to the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Beauvoir is the session. Around two hundred and sixty stone steps switchback up beside the torrent, past small oratories, to a Romanesque chapel on a ledge with the whole village, the valley and the far edge of the Valensole plateau spread out below. The star hangs directly overhead from up here, which is the frame most people come for.

Down in the village, the faience workshops are the other subject: Moustiers has been making tin-glazed pottery since the seventeenth century, and the shop fronts, the blue-and-white displays and the little squares around the church make good close, warm frames when the big view is flat.

Go at first light. The steps are in shade and empty before eight, the stone is warm-toned, and by eleven in summer the climb is genuinely hot and the village is full. The chapel is a place of worship with its own opening hours, so check before planning anything inside it, and wear shoes you can climb two hundred steps in.