One of the main highlights of our trip is the visit to the famous Lavender fields of Provence, France. You know, the rows or purple flowers in photos all over Instagram? The time of our visit was just the right time to see the lavenders in bloom, so I was very excited about it.
In the Provence area, Valensole is one of the most popular village to visit to see the lanvender fields. The fields are actually outside the village, but you can stop in Valensole for meals, shopping, and accommodation. So after our stop in Mandelieu / La Napoule, we continued driving to Valensole. It was close to sunset when we approached Valensole, and just a few minutes before we reached the village we spotted several cars parked on the street side and people walking in the field. It was one of the Lavender fields! Excited, we made the quick decision to follow suit and parked. The lavenders weren’t as purple as I had seen in pictures, but it smelled so good! One thing we realized at that time was that we will be dealing with a lot of insects if we want pretty pictures! Lol
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| Lavender Fields in Provence |
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| Lavender and sunset |
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Lavender dream
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After the Lavender field we went straight to our accommodation, which is a detached property in someone’s home complex. But we’ll get to that later.
The next morning, we walked to the village centre and walked around. We were lucky that on that day they had their weekly Farmer’s Market. At the market we bought some fruits and a rottisserie chicken for lunch. Wow the chicken was so good!
In the village centre, there was a boulangerie with a long lineup, a couple of restaurants, and many souvenir shops selling lavender products. From essential oils to freshly cut lavenders, you can take your pick. I couldn’t help myself I from getting a bunch of freshly cut lavender. They actually survived our trip home and are sitting in a vase at home in a dried state.
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| Fountain in village centre |
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| Very busy Boulangerie |
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| Valensole Farmer’s Market |
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| The many varieties of Lavender |
In Valensole, we stayed at
Gittes du Moulin de la Batteuse booked via Booking.com. It was a pretty large area with a pond, and we stayed in a detached apartment. The host and her family lives in the building next door. Miss Kiki was very happy there as they have a very large dog that she could play with. On weekends they have live music playing by the pond. We stayed there for 3 nights so we got to leisurely explore the area and recharge at the same time.
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| Self service laundry at a gas station parking lot |
While staying in Valensole, we also got to visit a honey producer called
Les Ruchers du Soleil. They sell organic honey in several different varieties. We tried a bunch of them but due to weight and luggage space we only bought three jars. I like the lavender honey and still have it in my cabinet to enjoy once in a while. From there, we also visited more lavender fields in the area. If our photos the day before was lavender fields during sunset, this time it was lavender fields on a cloudy day :D
On the very next day, we explored the area for more fields, this time we found sunflowers and more lavenders. It was a bright, sun-shining day and that added to our photo collection. :D
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| Lavender artisan ice cream |
Then there’s this house of Pistachios, run by a couple. They sell postachios and a variety of pistachio products. They are also in the process of growing their own pistachio trees but they were still too young when we were there.
We went back to the village centre again and took a closer look at the shops there, discovering the vast variety of lavender products they have.
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| Lavender Cookies |
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| Lavender spread |
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| Lavender ice cream |
That evening we closed our day with a pizza dinner bought at a pizza truck in the village centre. And that was our amazing lavender experience in Provence. Stay tuned, for we have more adventures after the lavenders as we continued our journey!
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