Church of Saint-Francois-d'Assise

The church at the heart of Port Grimaud was designed by Francois Spoerry himself as the spiritual centrepiece of his planned village. The exterior fits perfectly with the surrounding Provencal architecture — ochre-washed walls, a square bell tower, terracotta roof tiles. Inside, 25 stained-glass windows by Victor Vasarely fill the nave with jewelled, geometric light. The effect is startling: a traditional Mediterranean church interior transformed by one of the great abstractionists of the 20th century.

For one euro you can climb the bell tower. The view from the top takes in the whole canal network below — the 12 islands, 14 bridges, and moored boats laid out in the pattern Spoerry imagined. It is the best vantage point in the village and well worth the climb.

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The stained-glass windows were designed by Victor Vasarely, the Hungarian-French artist who founded the Op Art movement. Vasarely donated the windows in the 1970s as a personal tribute to Spoerry's architectural experiment — the combination of traditional Provencal form with avant-garde geometry inside is quietly jarring and entirely deliberate.