The South of France

The South of France, the Luberon Valley region specifically, is a beautiful place to be this time of year. It’s hard to believe that this time last year, my family and I were vacationing there for my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. (It’s even harder to believe I am just now sitting down to post about this trip!)
A Year in Provence, by Peter Mayle, is a well known novel written about this region. Peter Mayle lived very close to the home we rented while writing his book.
Bonnieux was the closest village on the map to the countryside home we rented. The home was not all that old, but was built with the classic Provencial architectural elements and methods.

Stone walls, tile roof, large, working shutters painted a pale green and the most amazing views of a valley and the mountain on the other side! Here was our view from the back door while sitting at the terrace table under the arbor.

The house was large, but so was our crew, so Pat and I volunteered to stay in the pool house. This was no slouchy pool house either! One entire wall was glass doors. Here was my morning view! I really miss waking up to this! What a dream.

I just purchased some canvas sling chairs like this for my patio tonight. When going back through my pictures from France just now, I found this photo and realized why I liked those chairs so much.

Each day we ventured out to visit the local villages. The country roads between the villages were full of olive orchards, vineyards, poppy fields, cherry orchards, honeybees and lavender, which was just beginning to bloom as we left. It was beautiful and even the air coming in the car windows smelled good. Each village rotates hosting the market of the day. Every village has a different type of market, so it’s never the same market twice. This is an herb vendor at the Bonnieux market.

The produce was amazing. We purchased our food for each night’s meal at the market. We would fall for some gorgeous vegetables and then figure out what to make with all of it later!

Of course, I could not resist any of the cheese, olive oil, or olives, and every afternoon we would have a charcuterie tray with our glass of rosé wine which the region is known for.

You may recognize one of these keys. I found these at a market and one of them became our Provence Key piece found in several of our necklace styles.

We took a day trip to Cassis. This may have been the favorite part of the trip for the kids, because it involved a beach and a lot of ice cream. They were pretty excited to have the opportunity to swim in the Mediterranean ocean, even if it was cold!