Provencal Venice
Isle sur la Sorgue
The Sorgue flows holding the old town "on the almighty arc of its imagination". It is in its benevolent presence that we discover the meanders of the narrow streets which surround the Collegiale Church and teem with life, the quays which rustle with passage and activity.
The welcome is warm in all seasons. At the Café de France , the plane trees protect against light or flying leaves, storms or heat. Everything is here. Nestled in the heart of the village that is the "old town".
We get lost sometimes. We find little spots that seemed to be waiting for us. We cool off at Notre Dame des Anges where we admire the lush nave as if by chance.
We have lunch or dinner on the go or at the table, we enjoy being here in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, as the quiet hours turn to the rhythm of the paddle wheels.
At the market, we let ourselves be tempted by a "poichichade" and we leave with a story! Antique dealers don't need much to convince us, beauties abound. We also get lost, in the villages of antique dealers, we stroll, we imagine houses that we could have, with a bonnetiere, a portrait, a clock. Time grows longer, gives us time to watch, to waste it a bit.
Everything is preserved. It is a secret that we share wholeheartedly, because nothing seems to be able to spoil it. We come and we come back, the new and the familiar get along well together. We think we could stay a little longer.
Le Luberon
When you leave Isle sur la Sorgue, you can head south-west to the Alpilles, Saint-Rémy and Les Baux de Provence. You can go down to Arles, and you could even go as far as the Camargue. But if you take towards the east, all the Luberon is before you.
It bounces off the three syllables of its name and stretches over a long land of wonders. Here, roads, paths and trails blend the past and the present, the softness of the air and the light, the man and the landscape.
Trees punctuate movement and travel. Plane trees, cedars, oaks, olive trees… Vineyards too, which crisscross the brown earth. And again arbutus, almond, cherry, cypress, hackberry, Judean trees… Leaves and flowers play and dance with the colors of the earth.
Under the warm midday light, the land is beautiful. We know how hard it can be when we work on it.
But for the traveler, the fields are like a balm. They allow the gaze to rest from so many colors and to land further on the horizon. They also illuminate, but lavender cannot be told: it suddenly appears in its almost magical evidence.
And the villages! The names sing and tell them. Gordes on the side of a rock, whose appearance stops you dead at the edge of the road, stunned by the beauty of the improbable; Roussillon , whose name tells you even before having seen the ocher palette of its houses and the red of its land.
And then so many others, Bonnieux , Saignon , Caseneuve , and Viens, beautiful and simple invitation… They suddenly discover themselves, juts out into the landscape, each with its history and its stones, springing from the mountain or nestled in the heart of a valley, out of a forest or in the fertile expanse. They appear to us, reappear and amaze us.
NEARBY ACTIVITIES
