Miss Saignon? That's Apt!

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After another trip to the boulangerie for some croissants and a baguette we headed out for the day with our first stop being Gordes.

Gordes is a typical Provençal hilltop village in a region known as The Luberon. This area is very pretty, full of lavender fields and was made famous by the book “A Year in Provence” - and it seemed that the whole of France, most of Japan and half of America had also decided it would make a nice place to start the day too!

We hadn't researched properly and had decided on market day for our visit. Now markets are nice to look around, and this one was very pretty with soaps, olives and lavender aplenty (plus some of those annoying carved frogs that chirp and are beloved of market traders the world over) but the sheer volume of people, traffic and general hubbub meant that we never really get to see the place we were visiting. Plus a street of densely packed tourists wandering from stall to stall seems to hold no fear for French motorists who'll happily plough a path through whilst smoking and talking on the phone as people scramble to safety.

Leaving the crowds behind we headed instead for Roussillon, famous for the ochres that are mined in it's hills. The whole village is on a red hillside, and having learnt our lesson we grabbed the first parking space available at the bottom of the hill. 15 minutes later, having passed numerous empty car parks on our way up the hill we arrived, albeit a bit sweaty!

The town itself was very pretty with nice squares, churches and other old buildings in various states of repair and thankfully it was not market day so we had room to breath!

We had lunch in a prime viewing spot, after having eventually found somewhere to buy a drink. Who would have thought that closing grocery shops, garages, and any other places that do take-away drinks between 12pm - 4pm is a good idea? We are thinking of moving to France and just working 12-4 every day. We'd be able to retire in a few years after just servicing the needs of sweaty anglo-saxons in need of refreshment!

Next we headed for Saignon (the non means “no it is not in Vietnam”), this was another pretty village, a bit more run down than Gordes but felt more real. It again had the nice squares with fountains and hotels covered in creeping vines. We climbed to the top of Rocher de Bellvue, a ruined castle with access that would not be approved of by health and safety, and enjoyed the views of Apt - saying “that's apt” a lot to amuse ourselves.

Finally we visited the Bonnieux and Lacoste. Bonnieux again had nice views, but by now it was all looking a bit samey, still very pretty but samey! Another 15 minutes of winding roads led us too Lacoste, now pretty much owned by Pierre Cardin and the University of Savannah so there were lots of Americans and overpriced shirts to be seen.

In the evening we decided to go out for dinner. We had intended to go to a restaurant in Graveson, which has rave reviews on tripadvisor, but when we got there it looked a bit of a dive, right on the main road with a faded menu and a transport café look to it! As we are snobs we decided to go elsewhere and drove to St Remy de Provence instead, only 10 minutes down the road but with about 30 or so places to choose from.

Eating in France is expensive, evening menus cannot really be found for less than £20 a head, in this respect Spain is much better value with lower prices and bread, water and wine is often included. The place we picked was €27 each for 2 courses, Tim had fish soup (with all the trimmings) and I had an onion tart (with unadvertised anchovies - luckily they were nicer than expected! Tim pointed out that this always comes with anchovies and he'd forgotten to tell me)
Next I had duck breast in a raspberry and honey sauce and Tim had lamb with Provençal vegetables. It was all nice, and we had a good evening, but both felt it wasn't great value for money compared to other countries we've visited. We don't even want to think how many meals we could have eaten out for that kind of money in Thailand or anywhere else in S.E. Asia!

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