Bonnieux and Menerbes

Friday


The final day of the Oliver family adventure to the Luberon included a trip to the hilltop villages of Bonnieux and Menerbes.

Bonnieux


We had a nice stroll around the village of Bonnieux, situated about 20 minutes from the town of Apt and perched on the very edge of a hill. I spent most of my time collecting photos of the cute windows for the collage I intend on creating shortly. As well as this we went up to the top of the village where there is an old 13th century church with a spectacular 360 degree panoramic view of the surrounding area. As well as the fab views, Bonnieux has an abundance of nice cafes and restaurants to suit all your ice cream and other food needs, mostly down cute little streets with terraces looking over the valley.

View from the church

Menerbes

A teeeny tiny village about 10 minutes from Bonnieux which doesn't have a lot except for a handful of cute shops and cafes, but again has a lovely view and more of a lived in atmosphere than any of the other villages, which often felt touristy. We stopped off here just to wander up to the church, check out the view and buy an ice cream on the way back from Bonnieux. Worth a quick visit and certainly added to my pretty windows album but don't set aside a whole day for it.

The village of Menerbes.

Roussillon

Thursday


We travelled again to the village of Roussillon but this time in order to check out their ocre cliff walk (a walk that claims to take 50 minutes that we did at a stroll with lots of sitting down in 30). The walk takes you through the huge ocrange and yellow ocre cliffs on the edge of the village, with information along the way about their uses throughout time (that's the boring bit). It's a great place to visit for photos, as the cliffs themselves are quite spectacular and bright on a sunny day. Preceded by a crepe the walk was enjoyable but something that you really only need to do once, in order to take pictures.

Your standard ocre cliff picture.

A quick look round the shops and popping in to my favourite ice cream shop (sadly the nice man from last year has gone) for some noisette - hazelnut to you and me - ice cream and it was a pleasant day all round.

Gordes market, the monastery, and Roussillon.

Tuesday

We visited the market in the village of Gordes. Gordes is an old town at the top of a hill with stunning views over most of the Luberon region, accessed by one road.

Colourful shoes at Gordes market

Every Tuesday morning they hold a market selling everything from exotic spices to sports bras to wooden whistles. The market is bustling with tourists and is a fun lively place to visit and to find gifts for friends. The ambience of the town is different to other hill top villages, that are mostly quiet during the daytime with a couple of cafes.

Gordes gives off the air of being somewhere for the rich and famous to visit in their convertible cars, from the €300 a night hotel with views of 30 miles of valley and mountains, to 5* restaurants. But down the side streets that come off of the main market square are smaller cafes, with views equal to that of the hotel, and little shOps selling post cards and clothes.
If you're in the area, especially on a Tuesday, I'd definitely recommend Gordes as a place to visit, if not for its over priced wares them its unbeatable views (both of the valley and the rather yummy guitarist at the market). 

The Monastery at Saint-Saturning-les-Apts

In the evening we drove to the nearby village of Saint-Saturnin-les-Apts and walked up above the village to the monastery. Not so much as religious pilgramage as my family don't hugely swing that way, but more for the view. From the top you can see around 40 miles of the Luberon valley - tiny hilltop villages surrounded by cherry and lavender farms, vinyards, and a lot of villas with pools! The valley is encircled by large mountains on all sides, which make a pretty spectacular backdrop for a sunset and watching an orange moon rise in the sky.

View of the village and the Luberon                                   

Wednesday

Roussillon, the ocre village perched on a hill

A lazy day by the pool followed up by a meal in the hill top village (you'll notice this theme emerging...) of Roussillon. Roussillon is another place that is well worth visiting, with arguably the best time being at sunset. The village overlooks, and is built on, huge ocre cliffs that are bright red and orange and really catchs the sunlight when it is setting. Among the narrow streets lined with orange houses with colourful shutters, are little postcard and trinket shops, and arguably the best ice cream shop in the region! (Try their lavender flavour, sounds weird but is amazing! The personal favourite being melon flavour) A cute little village that was definitely worth a visit.        

Fontaine-de-vauclause and Isle-sur-la-sorge

Monday

Today we spent the morning sleeping, swimming in the pool and doing some touristy things.

 Unfortunately yesterday I realised that I didn't bring the charger for my laptop so now I am sans laptop and writing this instead from mum's iPad, which I can't control at all!

 After a morning spent in search of a French charger for my laptop we finally gave up and headed for the pretty town of Fontaine-de-Vauclause, where the source to the river Sorge is. The town mostly consists of restaurants and little trinket shops, with a huge river flowing through it. After a short walk (10 minutes on a warm day, 30 on a boiling hot one) you come to a pool of water that is clearly very very deep judging by the black centre of it! Surrounding this pool, the source of the river, are tall vertical jagged cliffs, the backdrop to the town and the river. This dramatic setting with the river rushing past down waterfalls behind is perfect for a cool drink in one of the riverside cafes or a melon (the best flavour) ice cream.

The Papier Moulin and Fontain-de-Vaucluse

                                         
 From here we jumped in the car and went 10 minutes down the road to Isle-sur-la-Sorge, supposedly the Venice of the south of France. Although the centre of the town is pretty, with riverside restaurants and lots of bridges, the rest of the town is just scruffy houses and a few mismatched shops. A nice quick picture stop but not worth a full afternoon!

Isle-sur-la-Sorge

                                             
So that was my Monday spent in Provence!

Jusqu'à la prochaine fois! :)

Bonjour naff weather and no crickets!

Saturday

So I have finally (after what feels like decades) arrived in Villars, about an hour's drive from Avignon.

Chilling at Lille Europe station in between trains.

It's 8pm and about 23 degrees outside so I can't really complain, but tomorrow it is supposed to rain all day and that's our first full day! Hopefully we will get some sun later on in the week so we can visit all the pretty hill top villages and markets and actually go in the pool.

At the moment I just need to have some food and head off to bed! After a delayed train and an hour wait for the hire car, only to not make it to the supermarket before closing time, it's been a pretty stressful day all round. And to top it all off, we can't even hear the crickets that made their presence so known last year!

The Village we stayed in.

As a quick review of the trains I'd say I was let down by the state of the Eurostar trains - no where near as swish as they look on adverts and had minuscule amounts of leg room. On the other hand the TGV French trains were very comfy with lots of leg room and space.

The bonus to the whole train situation is that this is the first time in a few years that I've not been deaf on the first day of the holiday from the plane! Hurrah!

Jusqu'à la prochaine fois :)

Heading off to Frogland

So tomorrow we start our epic 12 hour journey to and through France via train.


Our day will start at 6am (terrifyingly early for a student...) when we pack the car and head for the magical town of Ebsfleet.
From there we will board the Eurostar train that will take us to Lille, where we then switch to TGV to travel to Avignon. 


As I have never travelled on the Eurostar before I am actually really looking forward to it. It doesn't look like the boring bog-standard trains you get in the UK, it's definitely a lot swisher and looks like something futuristic..
I shall update you on how comfy it was when I next have wifi tomorrow - if Eurostar has wifi itself it will score very highly.. also if it has a plug!


Having completed the worst ever packing known in the history of the world (or at least in my life) It's about time I headed off to bed. I shall post again tomorrow at some point with more news. 

Jusqu'à la prochaine fois :)