The first traces of habitation show that the city has been inhabited since It was then called "Vallis Clausa" which means "closed valley" and became Vaucluse. La Fontaine de Vaucluse is a typical village in Provence and attracts many people. The water source made the city prosperous, thanks in particular to the paper industry, which was a permanent and central activity until the 20th century.
The paper mill has maintained a method of handmade paper production from the fifteenth century. Also to be seen and visited are the ruins of Bishops of Cavaillon's castle from the 14th century.
This magnificent medieval village on the edge of the Luberon is particularly famous for its impressive emerald green source. It springs from a metre high cliff and remains one of the most visited natural sites in the Vaucluse. This gigantic fountain has the most powerful water flow in France and the fifth largest in the world with nearly million cubic meters per year!
Its abyss is more than meters deep and is only accessible by underwater robots. The funnel-shaped chasm of the spring has not yet revealed the extent of its depth, but it isonly the first of many secrets it contains. We know that the source was already venerated in ancient times. An old menestrier named Basile went to Isle sur Sorgue to make the girls of the city dance. He fell asleep in the shade, on the road to Vaucluse on a hot day.
A nymph appeared to him, took his hand and led him to the edge of the basin from which the spring blossomed. Facing them, the water opened up and they were able to enter between the two liquid walls. Reaching the bottom of the abyss, the night suddenly stopped in the middle of a beautiful meadow covered with supernatural flowers and the nymph pointed out seven diamonds. By lifting one of them up, the water began to flow. Thus the nymph taught him the secret of the source. By removing the diamonds, she swells the spring and by removing the seventh, the water reaches the fig tree "which drinks only once a year".
