Part three of the four-part story of Linda and Dave Beach’s trip to Provence:

First stop on day two was Roussillon, a colorful village known for its ocher quarry which was once used to color paints. Where many of the buildings in other villages are generally stone grey, the buildings in this town are all painted one of the many shades of ocher. There is a trail that you can take through the ocher quarry which is definitely worth it. It is called Le Sentier des Ocres and starts near the tourist office. Truly beautiful!

On the road to Gordes we stopped at a small winery called Domaine de Tara. We tasted about 8 types of wine with the wine maker and purchased several of them. The winemaker has a cousin who is a wine distributor in New York City and several of these wines can be found at restaurants there. Gordes is a wealthy hill town with interesting rock walls. Okay, so all of the towns have rock walls, but they seemed to be more prevalent here and there are pointed rocks stacked on top.

We continued on to the Abbaye de Senanque a few miles away at the bottom of the hill with lavender fields in front. This is a Romanesque abbey of Cistercian Monks which is still in use. You can tour the abbey, but we just spent time browsing the gift shop and walking around the grounds.

That night was warm enough for wine and cheese on our rooftop terrace. Dinner was at Le Fournil which is built into a cave. Our reservation was at 8:00, which is apparently the time that everyone dines in Bonnieux. Because everyone was seated at once, service was slow – a half an hour just to get an aperitif! mom and I had fish dishes, while Dave (now feeling better) and dad were more adventurous with goat and rabbit, as well as bull. The food was generally good.

Thursday is one of the two market days for the slightly larger, non-hill town of L’Isle sur la Sorgue. This town is located along the Sorgue River and would probably be beautiful on a warm sunny day with its outdoor cafés along the river. But when we were there, it was cold and threatening rain. The market was still fun and we bought small grinders filled with herbs de Provence and of course some cheese. This town is known for its antique stores which were, unfortunately, not open at the time of day that we were there. Their Sunday market is a “must do” for antique shopping. We stopped at the Boucherie in Bonnieux and picked up some pre-made sauté de veau for dinner which was fantastique!

Provence Markets