Le Village des Bories, Bonnieux and La Foret des Cedres.

Having had little driving to do yesterday, Jim was up to returning over the twisty scenic road over the Luberon Mountains as far as Gordes to visit Le Village des Bories. The origin of these bories is believed to date back to the time of the Ligurians who lived in the region several centuries before our era. The bories, familiarly known as Gallic huts, are built of drystone, that is stone without mortar. These traditional buildings, using local stone, were still being built up until last century. The bories village, restored between 1969 and 1976, looks as it did when the last inhabitants abandoned it at the beginning of the 19th century.

For scale!

Oven - Bories specially for cooking.

Some of them have 2 storeys.

Another oven.

Tools.

 The huts on the Skelligs off the Kerry coast, near Dingle are the same kind of construction. In the museum part, they had pictures of the Skelligs bories.

This one was used for rearing silkworms.

After you've seen a few it gets very borie!

To relieve the borie, we went to Bonnieux, another perched village from the top of which there is a panoramic view of the area. On our way, we had noticed a mountain that seemed to have a covering of snow. It turned out to be Mount Ventoux and what appears to be snow from a distance is in fact white limestone without any vegetation. From our car park, we wound our way upwards through yet another village that requires to be climbed. We followed that by climbing myriads of steps and arrived at the foot of the 86 steps that lead to the Vieille Eglise from which you get the panoramic views. I was not at all out of breath of course!

On our way up. That is the new Church spire.

Going up more.

I have discovered that Belfries are open in Provence so the the Mistral can blow through them.

Panoramic view of a perched village - could be Lacoste.

Another view from above.

And another..

Fontaine des deux dauphins also known as La Grande Fontaine - dry!

On our way down. Remember - what goes up must come down. so an equal number of steps and slopes had to be dealt with!

The Cedar Forest.

After Bonnieux we went to La Foret des Cedres for a walk. It was very windy so much so that one gust almost toppled me! We were much much higher than in Bonnieux. Jim and I have decided that this must be the Mistral that we are experiencing. Aside from the wind, the sky is a bright blue and it is lovely and fresh.

Lounging lady on way into Lourmarin - Jim can't understand why he didn't notice her before. I

We stopped at Lourmarin for a coffee and shared our first patisserie of the trip - an apple, pear and almond tart. Delicieux! Then we wandered about looking at shops and finally returned to the car where I suddenly realised that we had left without paying! We hot-tailed it back and, amid copious apologies on our part and reassurances on the waitresses part, remedied the situation.