Fields of Lavender Near Sault, France
Wow, what great pictures. What a great photographic vacation. I have so many pictures and not enough time to go through them that is for sure. Over 8 gigs of photos in 9 or so days of vacation, I will be busy for weeks sorting throught it all.
So where did we go? Thanks to my wonderful wife, we took a trip to the lavender growing areas of Provence in southern France. Guidebooks are a little slim on details for the particular area we were in, but my wife’s hours and hours of planning and combing the internet for small nuggets of information paid off in a huge way.
The center piece of the trip was about 6 days of wandering through the impressive and wonderfully smelling lavender fields near the towns of Sault and Valensole. Sometimes photos just can’t do a place justice and I think this is one of those spots.
Prime season for the lavender blooms is July, with most of the harvest completed by mid August. Although the weather was extremely hot and at times close to unbearible, the timing was nearly perfect to photograph the fields of purple.
For the duration of the trip we stayed mostly in ‘Gite’ hotels. Gites are what I would consider French bed & breakfast style accomidations. Many are in Bastides (farm houses) or other historic buildings run by the owner as a way to live in and maintain a piece of French culture and history while creating a bit of income to keep the buildings in good shape.
I really have to recommend the ‘Gite’ style of vacationing. The places we stayed were relatively affordable, and well accomidated as compared to European standards. I would do it again in a flash.
During the trip we had a lot of interesting cultural experiences. As I work with quite a few French, most of it did not surprise me, but some of it did. I have plenty of stories to tell from the apparent inability of store clerks to make change from any bill larger than a 5 Euro note, to the shock and dismay of our Gite hostess that could not seem to believe that we did not want to eat our breakfast croissants.
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