If you’ve never watched the film ‘A Good Year’, do!  For me it’s a favourite; a gentle, feel-good movie with wonderful scenery, that I can watch again and again.  Apparently it is mostly filmed within a ten minute radius of Ridley Scott’s home and we passed Château La Canorgue, or ‘Château la Siroque’ on our way out of Bonnieux.

Our visit was on the back of the 29 degree heat wave in the UK and we were very relieved to have a car with air-con, when it informed us the temperature outside  in Loumarin was 44 degrees!

From Marseille we drove north along the lavender route via Pertuis,  Loumarin, Bonnieux, Roussillon and stayed in Sault overnight.  Sault is a popular cycling destination with winding gorge roads leading in and out and you can see across the valley floor of vineyards and lavender fields to Mont Ventoux.

From there we travelled west to Senanque Abbey, Gordes and Carpentras market.  Then a leisurely afternoon was spent at Pont du Gard, luxuriating in the shade and watching others enjoying themselves in the river Gardon, before heading to overnight in Mas Thibert.  The whole Roman aqueduct was built to carry water 50km from the spring in Uzes to Nimes and descends only 12.6m its entire length, with the aqueduct bridge only descending 2.5 cm from end to end.