The source of a river, an abbey and bories

We started the day with a trip to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse. Our book says that the source of the Sorgue river in this town is one of the natural wonders of Provence. However, once we arrived at the source, all we could see was a dry cave. No water! That said, retracing our steps, the river did appear from nowhere, erupting from deep underground.

The green weed in the river made it look bright green in places… eye catching and unusual. For a while, we watched people doing white water safety and rescue training by the weir, overlooked by castle ruins high on a rocky outcrop above.

We also visited an old paper mill, which still produces hand made paper using traditional methods, with a water wheel driving the press… very interesting.

There were lots of market stalls alongside the river selling ice creams, food, clothing, craft goods and ‘tat’. As it was too hot to wear my Wales Rugby T shirt yesterday evening… because it’s made of thick high-quality material that I’d usually be pleased to have… I treated myself to a thin red dress that will be lovely and cool for the match on Saturday. Knowing my luck, the weather will turn cool by then! Anyway, we enjoyed wandering through the pretty town.

Our next stop should have been Gordes, a beautiful village that spills down the hillside, with a chateau and narrow medieval lanes. However, it was rammed. It’s the first time we’ve seen so many tourists during this trip. Driving through the narrow streets, John was worried about hitting somebody because there were people everywhere, taking photos and not looking where they were going. We tried 2 car parks but both were full so we decided to move on and visit the Abbey de Sénanque.

The abbey is a 12th century Cistercian abbey built of attractive pale grey stone and surrounded by lavender fields. I’d love to see it when the lavender is in full purple bloom.

There are now just 6 monks in the abbey. They devote their lives to prayer, and maintaining the abbey and its land, harvesting the lavender to make honey, soap, nougat, perfume and essential oil. We had headphones and a tablet that guided us as we toured the abbey and told us about the history of the abbey, what the various rooms were used for, and how the monks lived then and now.

The abbey is simple, peaceful and modest… beautiful without being too ornate. I particularly enjoyed wandering around the central cloister with gardens and a fountain in the middle. The abbey certainly felt a spiritual place.

On the way back to the campsite, I remembered I’d read about the Village des Blories, and we decided to stop there. The blories are dry stone huts dating back to the 17th century. Farmers and shepherds cleared the land of stones and used the flat ones as building materials. Some of the builders were very skilled to make such wonderful structures, and it’s amazing that no mortar is used in the vaulted roofs.

In the village there are little groups of huts, each with a home, animal pens and storage space for tools or harvested crops. There are also some communal areas such as ovens, threshing areas and wine or olive oil cisterns. There’s even a building for raising silkworms! We’d probably have missed this place if we’d been able to visit Gordes… every cloud has a silver lining 🙂