After the city folk found their way of the forest, we immediately stopped in the first available town to have some well earned gelato. Lourmarin is a small village of 1000 people which has been settled for at least a thousand years, and was probably a Neolithic campsite before that. A dominating fortress was first […]
On the outskirts of Bonnieux village is a massive cedar forest that began with trees imported from North Africa during the Napoleonic era. It sits opposite Mont Ventoux, know as the windy mountain where winds in the summer reach 320km/h but on average over 240 days out of the year go at 90+ km/h. We decided to […]
The original bridge on this road was built in 3BC and it was a wooden structure which was swept in one of the floods. The bridge was part of the Via Domitian road which was a quick way to connected Rome with the southern France. The bridge was eventually replaced with an arched stone bridged with two […]
Roussillon is a tiny but a picturesque village of about 1300 residents. It is famous for the rich deposits of ochre pigments, mostly red, yellow and orange, found in the clay near the village. The large quarries of Roussillon were mined from the end of the 18th century until 1930. Roussillon is located within the […]
Today, after lazing around after breakfast, and then lounging by the pool for a couple of hours, we decided to take a little lavender drive through Provence. As it turns out we are a bit late to the lavender party as the first harvest has already been taken and the new flowers are not going to […]
The cathedral is located on the route of the Roman road, the Via Aurelia. A fragment of a Roman wall and the columns of the baptistery seem to be the origin of the legend that the church was built on top of a Roman temple dedicated to Apollo. According to the Christian tradition, the first […]
Aix-en-Provence name comes from a Roman consul, Sixties Calvinus, who gave his name to Aquae Sextiae, “the Baths of Sixties,” a site of thermal springs in 123BC. Aix-en-Provence has about 140,000 residents and is generally considered a university town. There are great many sights to see here. The Cours Mirabeau is a wide thoroughfare, planted with […]
The origin of this town dates back to 800 BC. More importantly though the town was taken by Romans in 123 BC and as Romans do they build a lot of cool buildings. The Gallo-Roman theatre, the arena or amphitheatre, necropolis, Arles Obelisk and Barbegal aqueduct and mill to name few. Most of the old Roman buildings are being […]
Second stop on the way to the Abbey is the village of Gordes. We really happened upon it simply because of its spectacular and dominating hill-top presence. Like most villages in this region, it has strong ties to the Roman empire. First castle here was built in 1031 and the first abbey in 1148. The […]
Today we are taking easy after a long drive yesterday. After a late start and a lazy morning breakfast we are out for a short drive. First stop, Bonnieux, a small hill-top village dating back to the 6th century.
Just as we thought that the Roman aqueduct was the be all end all sight we were going to see on this trip, we were soon proved wrong. Quarries of Light is an extraordinary site. It was once a bauxite quarry in the bowels of the awe-inspiring landscapes of the “Valley of Hell” that inspired Dante, […]
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