Europe · France

Provence

Lavender on the Valensole plateau, Avignon and the Luberon villages. We set the dates by the bloom, not the calendar.

Provence lavender flowers roughly from 25 June to 20 July, but the exact window shifts by up to two weeks from year to year. That is why we talk to the farmers on the Valensole plateau from May onwards and confirm the departure date on what they report. In 2024 we moved the tour ten days later and the group arrived at full bloom.

We are based in Aix-en-Provence, big enough to have an evening and quiet enough to sleep in. From there we run loops: one day for the Valensole plateau and Sault, one for the Luberon villages of Gordes, Roussillon and Ménerbes, one for Avignon with the Papal Palace and the Roman aqueduct at Pont du Gard. You can swim under the arches of the Gard; the water sits around 22 °C in July.

Food is half the programme here. The Aix market runs Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings and we buy lunch there — olives, a banon goat cheese wrapped in chestnut leaves, bread, peaches. Marseille gets a free day, and anyone who wants joins the boat out to the Calanques inlets. The return is an overnight coach via Turin, sixteen hours door to door. We stay in a family-run hotel ten minutes from the Cours Mirabeau, with parking and breakfast. The guide is either Lucia or Ivana, both of whom speak French — which matters more in Provence than people expect. Outside Avignon and Marseille, English gets you only so far, and in village shops almost nowhere.

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