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| Gordes | | | | | | | |
This is the beautiful view we had as we arrived in the Luberon valley of Provence. It is the hill town of Gordes. From there we drove to the remote location of the Abbey Notre-Dame de Sénanque. The still- functioning Cistercian abbey was built in 1148 to recapture the simplicity of the early Church. It was one of about 500 such abbeys built by 1200 in Europe in reaction to the excesses of the Benedictine abbeys. I had a delightful tour of the Sénanque church, the small cloisters, the refectory and the rooms where the monks copied books. This is lavender country and there are huge, rounded rows of lavander plants everywhere. I have promised myself to make one more trip down to Provence to see these plants in full bloom!
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| Abbey Notre-Dame de Sénanque | | |
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| Abbey Cloisters |
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Our second stop was to another hill town called Roussillon; Europe's capital for ochre production until World War II. The orange orche is visible when viewing the nearby cliffs and accounts for the color of the buildings in the town. Even in Roman times the ochre clay was excavated and used to make bricks. The procedure for extracting the ochre had not changed in 2000 years until ochre mining became industrialized in the late 1700's. We visited the town, the 11th century Eglise de St. Michel and enjoyed lunch in a most picturesque square.
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| Roussillon |
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| Ochre cliffs in Roussillon |
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From Roussillon we drove a short way to Fontaine de Vaucluse. We hiked up a short path to the source of the Sorgue River. The amazing cave can be seen where the emerald green water bubbles up from the cavern below and flows down through the village.
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| Fontaine de Vaucluse (Source of the Sorgue River) |
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