Mission completed. Lavender fields: check 🙂
Our main goal of a trip to Provence was to see the lavender blooming. In the end, this is the main attraction there. So our first tourists’ steps headed to Abbaye Notre-Dame de Senanque. The view you see above appears in most of the postcards sent from here. No wonder… 🙂 Although we were a bit late to see the lavender in full bloom it was still pretty. We also made a walk in the abbey but to be honest – without the violet frame it would have been a bit boring.
We made a stop in Gordes where I discovered my utter love to lavender ice cream. I ate at least two boules of them every day throughout the whole visit. Even now, when I think of them, I start drooling and wish I was there again.
Our next destination was Village des Bories – beehive-shaped stone huts that date back to the Bronze Age (and have been restored some time ago). A short 30-minute walk around the settlements and we’re off to the next place – Lavender Museum.
Ok, so there was a lot of lavender that day. But what not many know, Provence’s treasure is also its ochre industry. Ochre is a pigment used in all sorts of products. Starting from rubber, ending with cosmetics. To be honest, I never heard of it earlier so I didn’t know what to expect but when we visited ochre trails I was simply stunned. The three ochre-connected places we visited were the most interesting to me from the whole trip. First on: Rousillon.
It’s worth mentioning that these photos were not retouched. The landscape was simply like out of this world. The soil was red. Like… red red red. Check out this (untouched) photo:
Can you see the colour of the soil? Amazing! We made an hour walk around the Sentier des Ochre and then we headed to Rousillon which was … wait for it … red too 🙂 Truly amazing place – worth paying a visit.
