Friday, October 27, 2017

Roussillon, 1

On October 17th we drove the few kilometers over to Roussillon, another bastide town, known particularly as a source of ochre pigment. Roussillon seemed particularly photogenic in the morning light and thus the two posts of our visit...
Departing from below Gordes...

A sea of fog and mist in the valley

Autumn in the vineyard

And in the lavender field


Ochre everywhere

Almost


Also a bit of lavender











Gordes

Just a few kilometers on from the Fountaine was the bastide town of Gordes, another beautiful village, or, wait, no, a classe village (I think it's probably a matter of how many turbusses a village can handle...), which we visited on October 16th.

Tons of flat rock around, lending itself to the building of fences

And also of these corballed structures, similar to the Oratory
of Gallarus, in Ireland, but a thousand years younger; there is
an entire village of them, reconstructed; called bories;
residents of Gordes seem to have converted them to out-
buildings, garages...

Anyhow, after parking at the aire, we walked up the 2k to
the town and were rewarded with great views



Another borie

Gordes citadel



Nosing around








Awaiting the turbuss

Very talented miniaturist...





At the aire...we spent the night

Fountain Vaucluse: The Spring

Hiking the trail to the cliff's base and the spring...

Female hiker

Along the trail, more poetic tributes

The trail, the cliff



Looking up some hundreds of feet

The spring, down there in the cave, said to be more than 1,000
feet deep

Measuring flood stages (in the spring)

Low tide

Previous visitors

As it emerges (this time of year)



Driving away from the box canyon where all this occurs