A few days in… Provence

Day 1: Château La Coste – art, food and wine 

With the rest of week containing a few long days, we start with a short trip to a place that gives a fabulous introduction to some Provençal specialties, food, drink, art and nature. Château La Coste, a 20-minute drive from Aix-en-Provence, is part winery, part gallery and part gastronomic experience. There are giant sculptures that seem to hang over the waters of the lake in the grounds, a superb tasting experience and food options that run from a simple café to an Argentinian grill and a fine-dining restaurant. There’s also a range of tastings and workshops, which can introduce you to the local wines or give you a grounding in the art of tasting itself. They run on specific days, take anywhere from two to three hours and need to be booked in advance. Take a daytime workshop and combine it with a stroll in the grounds before dinner, or join an evening food pairing workshop to sip and sample simultaneously.  

Day 2: Sault – gorges and gorging 

Sadly, there’s no way to do this day by public transport, but you’ll soon see why. The village of Sault is a classic of Provence, with weathered stone buildings on a hilltop 765m above sea level, overlooking miles of colourful lavender fields (if you’re around in June/July). There’s a 10th-century church, a lavender distillery and a history trail that takes you from the town’s ancient past to its more modern role as a centre for the resistance in WWII. The drive out will take you about an hour and forty minutes, but the drive back could take a little longer, if you make a spectacular detour. Instead of coming directly home along the D943, take the D942 and carve your way along the narrow roads that hug the sides of the Gorge de la Nesque, sometimes passing through arches in the rock. Once you come out of the gorge, you may as well push on to Saint Didier and reward yourself for making safe passage with a visit to Silvain, the nougat shop that’s a local legend. In total, you’ll spend about four hours in the car, so this is a full day including stops along the route, but a simple trip to Sault without the gorge drive is only three hours and still stunning.  

 

Day 3: Cassis – boats and pebble beaches 

The coastal village of Cassis (nothing to do with the drink, which is from Burgundy) is about 40 minutes south of Aix-en-Provence. It has rows of colourful buildings on the harbour, charming little cafés and one massif USP – it’s the main starting point for boat trips exploring the Massif de Calanques, a national park containing ribbons of fjords for 20km along the Côte d’Azur. You can access the park and the fjords on foot, but a boat trip gives you a fabulous perspective and takes you to some more remote parts. The trips vary in length (and correspondingly in price) but cost from 20-30 Euros. All boat operators sell tickets from the same hut on the harbour, so you can easily find an option which works for you. The trips are purely sightseeing apart from some special services in high season, which feature a “détente” stop – a chance for you to leap off the boat and swim in a sheltered cove.  

Day 4: Cotignac & abbey concert 

After coast, culture – with a trip to Cotignac and an abbey famous for its acoustics. Cotignac, an hour east of Aix-en-Provence, is another of Provence’s wonderfully preserved towns. Make an early-ish start and you can stop here for mid-morning coffee after a pleasant wander through the streets of the old town. For lunch, visit Lou Calen, which has a green Michelin star and an on-site microbrewery, before moving on to the Abbaye Thoronet. This Cistercian order abbey is legendary for the unique acoustics created by the long stone walls, which forced the monks to sing slowly and in perfect unison. Many recordings have been made here and timing your visit for one of the atmospheric concerts makes for an enchanting experience. They even run Gregorian chant workshops if you fancy a go yourself!  

Day 5: Luberon valley – cycling in serenity 

Cycling is a big thing in Provence, but if you don’t fancy taking on Mont Ventoux, a stage of the Tour de France, then La Véloroute du Calavon might be just the thing. It’s a new, completely paved and car-free trail (apart from some very short stretches through villages) that runs from Beaumettes to St Martin de Castillon, a distance of about 45km. As you ride, you’ll see the Roman Pont Julien, trundle across viaducts and stop at some magnificent viewpoints. There are companies that can rent you bikes, as well as transporting luggage or bringing you back from the end of a one-way cycle to save you pedalling through the entire return journey. While you can ride the route in either direction, Beaumettes is a larger town and has more options for capping the day with a glass of wine and some fine Provençal food.  

Day 6: L’Isle sur la Sorgue – brocantes and bars 

For the final day of our itinerary, we go into souvenir shopping mode, eschewing “I Love Provence” T-shirts, of course, in favour of searching out some curious objets and a delicious local specialty or two. L’isle sur la Sorgue is an hour north of Aix-en-Provence and is the perfect place to go if you want something unique to take home. As the name suggests, the river splits around it, making it an island if you’re generous enough with the definition. It’s packed with antique shops, but if you can time your visit for a Sunday (yes, it’ll take some shuffling of the above) then head for the Avenue des Quatre Otages, where a huge number of brocante stalls add even more bustle to the weekly market. Before you load yourself up with any heavy finds, grab a map from the tourist office and seek out some of the town’s working water wheels, which have been churning in the river for centuries. Along the way, you’ll find plenty of bars and cafés in incredibly pretty riverside settings for a coffee or a light lunch. Return home to pack up your finds and maybe source a bottle of rosé or two. New production techniques mean that the region’s specialty, which never used to keep, can now be stored away for up to a year, meaning you can take it home and use it as reminder of the glowing, floral beauty of Provence, whenever you need it. 

 

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