Provence - Tuesday 28th June

Today we went to Rousillon.  On the way there we stopped at the Abbey at Senanque.  This place appears in every calendar of Provence and there were thousands and thousands of people there taking its photo (ahem, thousands? – LT)  Well hundred anyway, and some came in coaches.

Here I am at the famous view point.  Some enterprising people have even cut a hole in the fence to stick your camera through:

We weren’t allowed to play in the lavender there though :o(

So we went right down to the abbey where they have some that you can play in.  Here I am on the hedge next to it:

Here I am on the other side of the wall.  LT says there’s usually lavender here too, but it’s not grown up yet as they replanted it all for this year:

Here I am at the other side of the garden near the bell tower:

I wonder for whom the bell tolls (You have been looking a little hunched lately... – LT) How rude!

Next we went inside just before mass.  You may just be able to see the cyclist on the left.  We think he was praying not to get hit by any cars, because he didn’t have a bike helmet when we met him on the road out later on:

Here I am with LT in the lavender, just to prove we were both there:

Our next stop was the village of Rousillon itself.  Rousillon is on an ochre field, which means everything is orange and yellow and pink and red and... (ochre coloured then... – LT) Ha ha, very funny.  They don’t seem to take very good care of their doors though:

We thought this one was especially funny, as there was hardly any door left, but there was a huge new lock on it:

We think this is the evolution of doors and windows:

We waited ages and ages and ages and ages for this one, you’d think she’d at least have lined herself up with the middle, wouldn’t you?  (Hey! – LT) Well really!

Look at all the jumble of buildings and houses in the village leading up to the ochre fields.  And if you look in the top right, you’ll see the dead centre of Rousillon (groan – LT)

This door is ancient, look at the date above it.  We think it’s almost as old as LT’s mum and dad...

Now this is my kind of house window, where the grapes are growing on the vine right the way up the house:

Look, I found an almost Jack-sized door:

Just to prove that the insides of the doors can be as bad as the outside:

We decided this was a very Provencal scene with the colourful houses and the moped outside:

Can you imagine how long it took to paint this?  It’s on the main road through the village, they’d have been running out of the way of the cars all the time, not to mention the tourists!

It was thirsty work tramping all over the village (ahem, tramping, or hitching a lift?! – LT)  It’s very hot outside, whichever way you travel!

Next up was lunch.  This is LT’s favourite place in Rousillon – they sell giant crepes with all sorts of toppings.  They used to do pizza style ones, but the ham, cheese and fried egg one we got today was a good substitute:

I’d also moved onto the cider, I find it more refreshing than the water (uh huh – LT)

Just checking to see that the bottle was really empty:

It was!

We just had to have dessert too of course, and there was a handy artisan ice cream shop across from the restaurant.  First I tried LT’s dad’s one, which had lavender flavour ice cream and strawberry flavour frozen yoghurt:

And then I tucked into LT’s, which was marron glace (otherwise known as glazed chestnut) flavour and nougat flavour ice creams:

One of us got a drip down our front, and it wasn’t the one in the fur suit...    Anywho, in memory of the post by the Blogess that we read about before going on holiday, when we saw this, we just had to take a photo:

On the way home we went past Gordes, and took some photos of the village from the viewpoint.  It seems that every village in Provence is perched precariously on a cliff!

Next stop was Sault, home to Mr Boyer, maker of world famous nougat.  We did battle with the biggest coach party of little old ladies and little old men you’ve ever seen to wrestle out some nougat.  LT said they must be related to her gran’s Monday club, who have similar ‘outings’, but they had filled the tiny shop so it was quite uncomfortable trying to get round (and he was only hiding in my rucksack! – LT)  However outside I got to see that in the window they had meringues that were bigger than me!

And here I am with one of the many Andre Boyer signs:

We went all the way round the back of Mont Ventoux on the way back to the gite, but when we got home we had a lovely feast of salad and fresh goat’s cheese from the deli in Sault, all topped off with some macarons from the ice cream shop in Rousillon.  This was a lemon and chocolate one: