Summer Lavender at Abbaye Notre Dame de Sénanque
: Abbaye Notre Dame de Sénanque, is an active 12th-century Cistercian abbey near the village of Gordes in the département of the Vaucluse in Provence, France. It's most famous for its stunning summer lavender fields, but you can also get guided tours of the church itself and the cloisters. Tony and Helen visited it on a beautiful summer's day before hiking to Gordes (see the videos about the walk and the village of Gordes as well - coming soon!).
Well, this is the approach to the Abbaye de Sénanque, they've thoughtfully planted some lavender fields to the sides, the road is to the right, and in fact, no queue, you just turn up and walk in there, although you have to have a guided tour to get round the Abbey itself.
There seem to be quite a few Asian tourists here, which is pretty good. Everyone's attracted by the lavender.
The Vietnamese guy and girls that we took the taxi with travelled all the way from Barcelona today to see La Lavande - and they're going back tonight! And that is a long way from here.
Not quite as much lavender as we'd hoped, but still... [Ed: at this stage, I hadn't see the next field!]
Well, there certainly are a lot of mainland tourists here, as there are in a lot of other places in Europe. And they pose here just the same as they do anywhere else! But the important thing is they're all having fun. There they are, they're all waving at me. Smile. girls!
Ah, they weren't smiling at me, they were smiling at their tour guide who was photographing them. Oh well, you can't win them all...
Well, here's the obligatory shot of La Lavande, in front of - yes, you've guessed it - the Abbaye de Sénanque.
I know you've seen this shot before, but you've got to admit, it's a stunner, isn't it?
There's lots of tourists here. But they keep this one field in front of the Abbey planted so that you can get that shot. There are lots of other fields around, but this one is especially photogenic. So you walk straight in, go right down past the other fields, and you can get this shot.
And to the right - there's just a hillside to the left - you can see the quarters of the monks. And if I swing round - actually I was resting on a wall there, so this will be a bit shakey - you can see the surrounds. And there at the back there's quite a sizeable lavender field, in between they've planted what will be be quite a large lavender field, presumably for next year, it will be very good.
Oh, and here are the Vietnamese and the Japanese girl who came from Vienna, the Vietnamese from Barcelona, and we all met together and got a taxi to Abbaye Sénanque and Gordes from Cavaillon. International co-operation! OK, smile, girls!
Ah, Helen's having a good look at these marvellous fields - beautiful colour - in front of the Abbey. Here's a different view. Unfortunately, the little baby there doesn't seem very impressed!
Well, in spite of all the many tourists, the Abbaye de Sénanque is a very peaceful place. And the lavender makes it very beautiful.
Now here's a view of the Abbey from the other side, and we're just about to depart on a walk back to Gordes which the signpost says, I'm glad to say, is about 2.3 km. Well, we'll see. But in any event, we've got what we came to see...
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