Start of the Lavender trail – 14 July 2010

While our tent dried out from the heavy dew, we toured south of Avignon to Les Baux. This hilltop town is built among wonderfully shaped rocky outcrops, in an area like a lunar landscape.




The town is cute, clean and quite worth a detour. On the way back to Avignon, we called by St Remy, where Van Gogh spent time in a mental ward, after slicing off his ear.

After packing our now super hot/super dry tent, we headed north-east through wonderful villages like Gordes and Roussillon to Sault, the heart of one of the lavender areas.

Gordes tumbles down a hillside, and we enjoyed our best lunch yet, of strawberry custard pie – delicious, and just outside town, we found our first lavender at the Abbey de Senanque.

Roussillon must be paradise to an artist. The town is built of rich red to vermilion coloured clay, the whole experience was like walking through an impossibly over-the-top film set. We loved it and were reluctant to move on.



The road from there to Sault is fairly uninteresting, but once we drove to the edge of town and looked out, the view of lavender fields is great. We drove through the fields to Mount Ventoux. At 1900m the air is fresh and cold, and the 360 degree view was great, despite the heat haze.

At Sault we picked up a brochure with a selection of lavender tours, but shortly into the drive, we decided to finish tomorrow, and spend the night at a campsite at Montbrun les Bains.