Lavender at l’Abbeye de Notre-Dame Senanque

I planned—or rather, failed to plan—this trip to Provence because I was sick with Covid during the week we were scheduled to finish up all our overseas screening for Japan, plan this road trip, embrace summer in Belgium, etc etc. Nothing got done.

So by the time I booked us somewhere to stay, the places further down into the French Riviera I had looked at were all booked up, and it seemed a little further than I had the energy for. So we settled on Provence instead of the Cote d’Azul. It turns out some of the most popular lavender fields are further over that way. Oops.

But like I say about many things: I don’t need to see ALL THE LAVENDER FIELDS, but I would like to see some lavender fields. At just 45 minutes away, the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Senanque seemed like a good alternative to a 3-4 hour each way day trip.

We had just missed a monastery tour, which meant the abbey was fairly uncrowded. Isaac went nuts for all the bees buzzing the rows of lavender, and Eloise chased butterflies in the warm spring sunshine. The whole valley smelled fantastic of course. If I had a pillow and a blanket, I cannot imagine a better place for an afternoon nap than this little valley, humming with sleepy bee buzzing, the warm earth lifting the scent of fresh lavender into the air, and olive trees well-placed for shade as needed. I’m sleepy just remembering it. We spent quite a while milling around the rows, watching bugs and people come and go.

“Dad and I agree: this is super girly,” Isaac said.

“Aren’t you lucky to have girls in your life to help you enjoy beautiful places that smell good and make you happy?” I asked.

Isaac laughed and ran off saying “Noooooo!” and loving it.

We debated whether we should stay for the next tour in a couple hours and decided to do it. We raided the gift shop for lavender honey, lavender nougat, lavender shortbread, and lavender soap, then gobbled up the nougat and shortbread and ended up a little sugar-crashed and hangry partway through the tour. In the future, I would totally skip the tour, because all the lovely lavender was outside, and the inside is not different enough from every other abbey courtyard to justify having to walk along slowly with a huge group, listening to an ipad translation of a French tour that took over an hour. But definitely visit the abbey for the exterior!

So afterwards we had a reckoning: sugar-crashed, with zero reception, in the one spot in all of Europe that doesn’t have any café or food truck nearby. Anytime I pack a lunch, I end of feeling silly because there are charming, inexpensive places to stop for something to eat everywhere. Then this time I bring nary a snack and we’re food-less in the middle of nowhere. Sad.

Fortunately, as we blindly drove through the craggy, dry hills, we came upon Gordes, a tiny medieval town perched on a craggy hilltop. In a hungry haze, we found parking and an unbelievably charming café underneath an ancient tree at the base of the castle. Here we had a best charcuterie assortment I’ve ever had with a Provence biere. The kids are good sports about trying all the cheeses, and these were all tasty. Sometimes we end up with blue cheese that is so tangy I can’t eat more than a couple bites. But this was all DELICIOUS.

We told Chris we would stay at the table and chill while he explored the castle, but if he wasn’t back in 20 minutes he had to buy me the house I liked in Cammarata. Unfortunately for me, the castle turned out to be a one room art exhibit and Chris was back on time. Le sigh!

Then we drove back to the airbnb. This sounds a little stupid but I was surprised how much driving around we had to do to get from place to place in Provence. It’s really spread out! But I think we did a good job of seeing things and relaxing—the pool at the airbnb was really a big win. Especially if you ask the kids!