Tuesday July 15

With Rosie's unfortunate news about the state of the lavender over at Valensole we decided we would have to get over there and see for ourselves. On the way though there was a windmill that wanted its picture taken. The drone came in handy.

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So we got to Valensole and found things pretty much as Rosie predicted. All the good fields had been cut, Below is one of the iconic locations.

_8502533 Oh well. The photo gods giveth and taketh away.

Something we did find was sunflowers. Lovely massive fields of them. But we have those in the States. 

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We wasted no time heading back west. On the way home we stopped in the village of Roussillon. This village is extra cool because it is built with a red stone which is close at hand. 

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One of the little delights of driving through Provence are the long rows of sycamore trees that line the roads. I posted a few photos of these on the blog from our two previous trips. Here's a link to one of those posts. https://pkkelly.zenfolio.com/blog/2024/1/nimes
The road over to Valensole took us through the longest one we have yet seen. Below is a video Jeanne Marie took as we drove through. It gives a nice taste of what driving around Provence looks like. Sorry about it being sideways. Just turn your monitor on its side. 
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And then the photo gods had pity on us, We found three beautiful lavender fields sitting all alone, waiting for us to take their pictures. 
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And just as we were rolling back into L'Isle we found the biggest, fattest, most gorgeous lavender field we would see on the whole trip. It was just ten minutes from our quarters. So there will be a lot more opportunities for pictures. 

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We were so close to home there was still some daylight when we got back into L'Isle. Enough time to walk around a little more. Such a delightful place to come back to.

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Out for more lavender photos tomorrow.