Like many of the hilltop villages, we were able to see Bonnieux well before we got near it.....It always looks spectacular when you can see these villages perched up on the hilltops...we really don'y have anything like this back home in Australia.
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| Bonnieux In The Distance |
As we got closer to Bonnieux the village of Lacoste suddenly appeared when we rounded a bend in the hills, again a great visual impact....you just have to stop to take a photo, it is impossible to just drive on and ignore this type of view.Within no time we were at the base of the Bonnieux hill looking up at the village.
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| The Village Of Lacoste |
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| Looking Up At Bonnieux |
We wound our way up the hillside and into the village......Lesley had been so impressed with how well I had driven in France...on the wrong side of the road.....and on the wrong side of the car....I am sure I made her feel even more confident as I came out of the last hairpin on the edge of town and proceeded to run up and over the footpath.....thank goodness there were no pedestrians, and that no-one saw....except for Lesley who gave me the most horrified look....her confidence in me lost!!!
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| View From The Crash Site!!!!! |
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| View Across To Lacoste |
We drove into Bonnieux, but for once were not overly impressed with the town, so we kept driving until we found ourselves leaving the town, out the other side. However, looking back at the town we found that we had stumbled across a great view of Bonnieux.
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| Looking Back At Bonnieux |
From there we took more of an attitude, lets just keep driving and see what we come across. Well, for those of you that are big fans of the movie "A Good Year" with Russell Crowe we actually came across the Chateau and Vineyard his character inherited in the movie.
A few kilometres out of Bonnieux we found ourselves winding through some amazing countryside, it was like driving (winding) through a series of small gorges. At one stage the scenery became irresistible... I had to find somewhere to pull over and take a photo. So in the middle of no-where we pulled over and got out to have a look around and grab some photos. As we stood there we could clearly hear voices from somewhere above us...looking around, Lesley found a couple of guys halfway up the cliff face, onviously scaling it to the top...rather them than me!!
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| Beautiful Cliffs All Around |
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| Does Not Look Safe To Me!! |
Just over halfway between Bonnieux and Cucuron we came across a lovely looking chateau in Lourmarin set amongst some lovely landscaped gardens. I loved the tree-lined road going past the chateau.. it is such a typical French scenne, we have driven through many of these tree-lined roads.....I had take a photo.
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| Chateau Lourmarin |
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| Classic French Tree-Lined Road |
Finally, we pulled into the town of Cucuron, not a very appealling town to us at all. We had a bit of a drive around before we left when we stumbled across one very nice area that had a very large tree-lined pond, with restaurants down one side and some very old pretty buildings over the road........We had seen this before......yet again, the movie "A Good Year" jumped out at us....this was the aera where the two main characters met for dinner, there was a pond, a band and an outdoor cinema....this was the location. We found the pond and restaurants, but I am afraid they never have an outdoor cinema or band playing here!!
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| Views Around The Pond At Cucuron |
It was getting late in the day so we decided to head back to Avignon. On the way back we drove the back way past the village of Lourmarin and a lot nicer view of it.....apparently this is the village that the author Peter Mayle now lives near.
So that was our second day exploring the beautiful villages of Provence, we had a great time, and thoroughly loved them.....I am sure we will be back.
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