Justin de Provence is a guesthouse between the Côtes-du-Rhône vineyards and the open Vaucluse countryside outside Orange, run as an LGBT+ friendly address for couples, friends and solo travellers alike, who are welcomed with the same warm, relaxed attention. The idea is a place to feel comfortable and free to be yourself straightaway, in step with the slower pace of Provençal life.
The house is an old Provençal farmhouse, carefully restored, and mixes antique furniture and refined decor with contemporary comfort. Its five air-conditioned rooms each have a different feel but share the same invitation to calm and privacy. There is an outdoor pool, a heated indoor pool kept warm through the cooler months, a jacuzzi and a wellness area, and a garden scented with roses and jasmine, with quiet corners to sit as a couple, read in the sun or simply let time pass.
Breakfast is homemade and built around local produce, and from the house it is an easy trip to Orange's Roman theatre, to Provençal villages and markets, and to the wine estates of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas and Cairanne. It suits a romantic weekend, a trip with friends or a few quiet days together, with friendliness, discretion and the pleasure of being together as the point. Its owners, Gérard, Eitan and Stéphane, describe it as an open house without prejudice, where guests come as they are and often want to return. The whole property can also be booked privately, for up to fifteen people.
The house covers 700 square metres with its outbuildings. Four of the five rooms are upstairs and one is on the ground floor opening onto the garden, ranging from 22 to 34 square metres; all but one have a king-size bed, the exception offering two beds instead. Each takes its name from an opera staged at Orange's Roman theatre for the summer Chorégies festival: Carmen, Norma, Otello, Salomé and Tosca. Bathrooms open onto the rooms and are fitted with old barber's furniture, and the curtains and bed linen are French-made. Downstairs, the sitting room has deep sofas and a fireplace, the kitchen is fully equipped and opens onto the terrace, and the house runs its own small bistro, Le parfait amour, with a zinc counter.
The garden is planted with mulberry, olive and laurel trees, cedar and lavender. The outdoor pool, eleven by five and a half metres, is built in Gard stone next to the jacuzzi, under a linen awning with rattan and wrought-iron seating; the indoor pool is six by five metres, also carved from Gard stone, lit through a south-facing glass rotunda and heated to 30°C through winter and the shoulder seasons. There is a hammam, and massages with organic essential oils can be booked. The house has won Tripadvisor's Travellers' Choice Best of the Best award every year from 2022 to 2025 and Booking.com's Traveller Review Award every year from 2020 to 2025, was named best accommodation in Provence at the 2023 e-réputation awards, and was one of Le Figaro Magazine's 150 favourite guesthouses in France in 2020. The current owners have run the house since April 2019.
