Oppède, Luberon

  • Post category:France

From St Jean du Gard it was a 2.5 hour drive east to the Luberon area of Provence.

On the way we stopped at carrieres-lumieres.com just outside the town of Baux-de-Provence. Here in an abandoned Limestone quarry the large flat walls make ideal surfaces to project pictures onto. When we were there the works of Michelangelo were displayed.

We had heard it was good but it is hard to explain how effective and interactive it felt. It was a very good detour.

Home for the best part of the next week was the tiny village of Oppède. Here we had a refurbished old house along with the Fergs. The house was lovely with high ceilings, beautifully decorated, and well equipped both indoors and out. And it was surrounded by fields but it was only a 3 minute walk to the bakery. From here it was a good base to explore some of the villages in the area.

We arrived on a Sunday and because we had not shopped we were short of food (most shops are closed on Sundays) But at the restaurant we eventually found for lunch Ferg saved half his cheese and we ordered another cheese plate and two bottles of wine. That combined with what we could cobble together made a dinner. From there our dining experiences were all good. From plat du jour for lunch and barbecues and salad for dinner. Summer fruit and a few wines were also part of the mix.

As usual, in the face of scarcity,  Andrew managed to find a beer (in an over-sized glass)

One day we visited 3 quite touristy villages, the 1st of which was Gordes which was the nicest and least overrun.

The next, Rousillon, was built on distinct red earth and had a different feel, but it was absolutely crawling with tourists.

We drove to the small city of Apt for a pleasant lunch before heading to Bonnieux,  Bonnieux is quite hyped up by travellers.  It was nice, but not outstanding

The big surprise for our last afternoon was to return from exploring and finding the Circus camped opposite our house. It was impressive how quickly they had set up and were planning to be in business that evening. They had initially placed
some posters in the nearby villages. They used a van with four large loud speakers on top and drove around the nearby villages advertising their shows – very very loudly. Our tranquility was destroyed when they parked the van 50 metres from our house with the loud speakers still in action.
After a while it was apparent the noise was not going to stop so Andrew walked over to the circus and politely used sign language with a team member and the speakers were turned off. Andrew, the Grinch, asked the circus to be quiet!  As a result he got ignored by me for a few hours after that performance!  

Next up, exploring Aix-en-Provence, Nice, and a few other places–>

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