Contact Phone Number

While we're overseas we will have a Travelsim mobile with us as the international mobile call costs from Telstra are too expensive. To call us from a mobile simply dial +37257173206. To call from a land line call the international exit code (e.g. 00 from NZ and 0011 from Aust) then 32757173206. Remember France is 8 hours behind Aust and 10 hours behind NZ.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Tuesday 14th June - Villages

Today (after finding our first scorpion of the trip on the step by the front door - see the blurry photo) we set off to show Campbell some of the other Provencal villages that Jan and Chris had discovered when we were last in Provence in 2001. We started with Venasque which is a small hilltop village where we stayed in 2001. The village has change markedly and is now much more touristy than it was then. The centre piece of the village is a church constructed in the 5th century and still used today. The weather was extremely hot today (up to 32 degrees) so our next stop was a shady restaurant in L'Isle-sur-le-Sorgue for lunch and liquid refreshments. This village is very popular for antique hunters with a large antique and bric a bac market held every Saturday. It lies on the river Sorgue which once powered 70 water mills that pressed grain and oil.










After lunch and a stroll through the town we moved to Gordes which is another hilltop village which spills down in terraces from a Rennaisance chateau and the Church of St-Firmin. Gordes is now a tourist haven with many expensive hotels and restaurants but it's location and the views of the plains below make it a must see. Nearby to Gordes is the Abbaye de Senanque which is the location used for most of the publicity shots of Provence - with the paddocks of lavender as a foreground to the Abbaye buildings. The Abbaye was founded in the 12th century and still houses monks today although I suspect most of their income is now from tourists.
Last night we took Campbell on a wander around Sablet so there are a few photos of this, and today's adventures, on this blog. We've also modified the blog settings so you should be able to add comments if you want by clicking on the red comments tag at the bottom of each post.
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  1. LoisDJune 14, 2011 at 4:05 PM

    Well at last we can comment on your blog which we are enjoying. Some of those hilltop villages sound very familiar as Irene and I stayed in one in Tuscany last year and we had an afternoon's wine tasting in another. We have just come back to the apartment to catch our breath before we head off to see The Jersey Boys. Temperature here today wa 102 degrees which I am sure you will be able to convert to Celsius as the Americans are not into metrics. Have you check on the latest Christchurch earthquakes?

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