We spent our third consecutive summer in Le Poët-Laval, in the department of Drôme, in southeastern France.
Our love story with Drôme started three years ago when we moved to Grenoble, Isère. Due to the proximity to the Vercors Massif, my husband and I planned a backpacking trip that brought us to Châtillon-en-Diois, a charming village in Drôme.
After just a mere one-night stay there, we were ready to return to this region for a more in-depth exploration. Weeks later, we rented a gîte (holiday house) near Chabrillan, a little hilltop village in northern Drôme. In less than a week, we were completely convinced by the high quality of life in this region.
Discovering Le Poët-Laval
This year, we decided to discover Le Poët-Laval in Drôme Provençale, an area covering the southern third of the Drôme department. It is one of the many fortified, hilltop villages that can be traced back to the Middle Ages. It holds a special certification: it’s listed as one of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (The Most Beautiful Villages of France).
Les Plus Beaux Villages de France
To earn this prestigious label, a village must:
- Have fewer than 2,000 inhabitants
- Possess at least two protected national heritage sites or monuments.
Across all of France, fewer than 200 villages hold this distinction. In tiny Le Poët-Laval, with its fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, it is privileged to have three official historical monuments: the Château and its chapel, the ramparts, and the Protestant temple.
Before this trip, we had already visited three out of the six certified villages in Drôme. We covered Châtillon-en-Diois, Mirmande, and Grignan (Drôme Provençale) in the summers of 2024 and 2025. In the spring of 2025, we drove to Balazuc while staying in Ardèche, a neighbouring department of Drôme. This year, we took a notch up to five with our stay in Le Poët-Laval.
Life in the Vieux Village
Unlike the day trips, this time we stayed right inside the vieux village (old village) itself. We rented a 64 m2 gîte which was annexed to the gîte owner’s 16th century-built mas. Mas is a term used in southern France to describe large rural properties.
It was a charming building with iconic thick, sun-bleached stone walls and sky-blue shutters and doors. As the owners were away during our stay, we were invited to use their garden. The invition extended to enjoying the ripe, crunchy green Reine-Claude plums straight off the trees.
Heatwaves and Mosquitoes: The Unfiltered Reality
Unfortunately, the weather was not in our favour: we arrived in the middle of France’s fourth heatwave with temperatures hovering around 35°C in the region. We could only venture out in the morning and in the evening and hibernate with the shutters tightly closed during these times. On top of that, we were attacked by mosquitoes whenever we stayed out at dusk; the mosquito spray was not 100% mosquito-proof.
La vie est belle in Le Poët-Laval
Despite the heat and the mosquitoes, we appreciated the life in Drôme Provençale.
As we lived right in the vieux village (old village), we could walk leisurely to its only two restaurants and savour the high-quality dishes made from local produce. After dinner, we could stroll along the ramparts and take in the panorama of the Jabron Valley and the surrounding hills.
With the village perched on a hilltop and surrounded by forests, we could enjoy the cooler temperatures in the morning to do a quick trail run in the environs before the worst of the heatwave set in.
Last but not least, we were completely immersed in the charming setting of a medieval village. The historical monuments, the stone staircases, the narrow cobbled-stone alleys, the terraced views, vaulted passageways, the dry-stone walls, the luxuriant blooming shrubs. La vie est belle in Le Poët-Laval.