Day 10, 27 May 2008, Gordes, Abbaye de Senanque

Route

We had an awesome breakfast of fresh croissants, fresh orange juice, homemade marmelades and jellies in the common room. After eating breakfast and getting cleaned up, we headed back over to Gordes to shop in their weekly market. The Provencal markets are one of the big draws here, and this one did not disappoint. I will say, however, that the market in Annecy was much better (of course, Annecy is a much bigger city, too). Angela was able to find an awesome table cloth, some local olive oil, and a nice scarf. We had lunch from a guy grilling sausages of all types. I have to be honest here; this might have been the best meal I've had to date on this vacation.

The weather was really threatening and very windy, but we didn't get any rain at all today. Vendors' stalls were blowing all over, and they were reall scrambling to chase their wares that were blowing away. It was actually kind of funny.

One place I had read about in preparing for this trip was the Abbaye de Senanque. It's a Cistercian abbey that dates back several hundred years. The grounds are lovely, but all of the lavender fields were still dormant. Apparently we missed the lavender blooming by a couple months. We took the guided tour of the abbey (the only way to actuall see the inside), but it was entirely in French. There were a couple of American kids one of which was translating in real time who earned the scorn of our guide on more than a few occasions. Towards the end of the tour, the tour group as a whole got a stern talking to from her on the meaning of following instructions.

Anyway, the abbey itself was pretty austere, as most monestaries are. The architecture was impressive and you could see the "signatures" of the different masons who were hired to help build the abbey.

After a couple hours, we decided to head back to the B&B (or "mas" or "gite" as they are called here). We made a quick stop in Goult, quickly decided that it was pretty sleepy and headed out, but not before picking up a bottle of local wine, some cheese and crackers, and some olives. They made for a wonderful afternoon snack back at the mas.

We went back to Gordes for dinner, since we had seen a couple other restaurants there this morning, and had a great dinner in what appeared to be a somewhat "locals" type place.

Tomorrow is our hot air balloon flight, and the pilot confirmed that the weather should be good tomorrow morning. We have to get up pretty damn early, but it should be well worth it.