A Too-Short Time in the Luberon

We’re a bit behind on posting; we have even had images uploaded for about 2 days, awaiting a post, but keep getting prevented from posting: staying up too late to write at night and spotty network connectivity (especially on the Avignon – Paris TGV ride).

I have a bunch more photos from Eze that I shot with the 7D before we left, and then we’ve spent 2 days about 2.5-3 hours west of Eze, in the Luberon valley.

We stopped on the way west in Nice for lunch.  It’s the nearest larger city, and we pretty much had to go right through it to get where we were going…so after checking out of Chateau Eza, we headed to Nice.  It is only probably a 20-30 minute drive, so we were there in no time.  I haven’t had a chance to upload photos from Nice yet, but it was a short trip in any case: walking along the main promenade along the Mediterranean, eating more gelato (speculoos flavor!), and finding some shopping for Kelly.  She was initially in search of a store called Ben Simon, which sold a certain kind of shoe she’s seen online, but can’t buy in the US.  Mission accomplished.  We at lunch at a cute bistro next door to Ben Simon, which worked out well — all of this was far enough from the main touristy area that we didn’t feel like we were dining in a tourist trip (it seemed full of locals).  Wandering in the area some more, Kelly lucked out again, as we stumbled into a shop where she seemed to like pretty much everything.  The store, ba&sh, seems to be in a few different European countries, but nowhere in the US as of yet.  She picked up a few things, so some of you will see them in action before long.  I’ll post a few Nice pictures from my phone if I’m able to get them to upload here in Paris.

Continuing our journey westward from Nice, we headed to our next stop: a small hilltop town called Gordes.  We’ve done Instagram posts from there, but haven’t caught up on posts here while in Gordes at all…and we’ve already moved on from there (I’m typing this a few hours after arriving in Paris).  The hotel we stayed at in Gordes, La Bastide de Gordes, was fabulous.  The property itself is pretty insane: it’s sort of built into to 12th century defensive wall of the village of Gordes, with a series of terraces (some for pools, some for dining terraces), and smallish overall: 34 rooms.

The hotel has two primary restaurants: La Citadelle and Pierre Gagnaire.  La Citadelle is the ‘more casual’ of the two, but is still quite elegant and in a dining room overlooking the valley.  Pierre Gagnaire is the prestige choice, as it has a Michelin star.  We dined at La Citadelle on our first night, and it was superb.  Kelly also liked that the hotel had a spa on site, and got a massage on the second day.  She even approved of the fancy brand used for the hotel’s toiletries.  The hotel was all-around impeccable: the staff seemed to be omnipresent (but not stalking) and basically mind readers, and friendly-but-not-fake.

I roamed around while Kelly was at the spa and took some pictures around Gordes.  From the town walls, there were some great views of the valley. Most were taken with my 7D, and the network connection here in Paris is slow enough that I think we’ll be limited to things I upload from my phone’s camera (the 4G Orange service on my phone is a good bit faster than the hotel wifi).  I expect to upload some more photos tonight (starting it when we go to bed) and include them I a post in the next few days while here in Paris.

We used the second day to take a day trip to Roussillon, another nearby hilltop village.  It is famous as being a site of ochre mining from the 19th century onward.  In pictures (some of while I’ll post after I upload them), you can see how the exposed earth is a crazy orange color (the mining is minimal there now, but the long history of mining is evident just looking around at the landscape) and all of the village buildings have the color to them.

We’re newly in Paris as I type this (almost 11 PM on Saturday night, Paris time), and we have a stop in Avignon between Gordes and here that needs a post as well.  I have photos on the phone to upload to support that as well.  These connectivity issues make me long for my much much faster and more reliable connection back home in Austin!