France - part 11

Lavender land...

Our next outing was mostly just driving round the countryside enjoying the scenery. We took a long straight road east, along the southern edge of the Parc Naturel régional de Luberon, and then drove up through the park taking a detour through Buoux (amazing natural rock climbing faces),  I think that the last few photos were taken in Bonnieux, but I can't remember for sure. Looking at the signpost in the third photo, it could also have Lourmarin.
 This is lavender land...It was the most hazy and overcast day we had in Provence (apart from the day we left), but it didn't really matter too much. We still really enjoyed the scenery and our occasional stops.

On our way back we took in a stop at a vineyard - the Domaine de La Citadelle. They had a most interesting corkscrew museum - whoever would have thought it possible for so many different patents to have been applied for and granted for various types. We also got to look round the winery and have a tasting - but since the car is already pretty full just with camping gear, we restricted our purchases to one single bottle of the wine we liked best, as a gift for somebody.

France - part 10

Roussillon, the old ochre quarries. It was hard to get true colour in the photos - but it was certainly beautiful.

We hope that there will be a "next time" in Provence where we can visit a similar but less developed area called the Colorado of Provence. We got talking to a French couple at the end of our walk through the Roussillon quarries. Like us, they thought the time estimated for the longer walk was very much an over-estimate, and recommended Rustrel to us as a less developed and longer outing.

Roussillon  is where I bought my beautiful coloured pigments as shown in THIS post.

France - part 9

Roussillon town:

War memorial

There was a small graveyard just behind the car park for the walk through the old ochre quarries.

A Half-cylinder polar sundial

France - part 8

Our first major outing from Eygalieres was via the abbey at Senanque to Roussillon. The abbey car park was absolutely packed, so we drove back up the hill and parked in a little lay-by overlooking it, and then walked down and took a few photos but didn't actually go in.
They practice crop rotation, so some of the fields were planted with phacelia as a green manure - but their primary harvest is lavender.

The next couple of photos were taken along the road to Roussillon, and at the approach to the town.

This next one was lovely - and yet all it was was the metal frame around a place to leave bins and rubbish.

And a glimpse of the ochre;