It’s been a busy couple of days, and we’re taking one of those rare timeouts from being tourists and enjoying a tall drink within fabulous surrounds of the Hôtel Du Poète.

It was about 400km drive yesterday from Carcassonne to our current location in Provence, via a considerable (but entirely worthwhile) detour over the Millau Viaduct and onto the Coste Rouge dolmen within the ground of the Saint Michel de Grandmont priory. We arrived in Fontaine de Vaucluse just as the light was fading, giving us just the right amount of time to head out into the village to enjoy the final throws of a local festival which was winding down.

We had a latish start today, leaving the hotel in plenty of time to experience the mass exodus of camper vans leaving the village after last night’s festivities. Grabbing a baguette from the local boulongarie, we headed to our first port-of-call of the day; the 18th century Village des Bories.

As one of those “how did they do that way back then?” style of historic villages, Bories consists of 30 conical balanced-stone huts (held together with absolutely nothing but gravity). There was very definitely structure to society, as each one had a purpose such as houses, grain lofts, silkworm factories etc… and each one of them comfortably cool inside thanks to being made from white rock and vented, protecting from the outdoor heat.

Driving via the impressive “hanging town” of Gordes, we visited Senanque Abbey, of which we learned nothing about as it we could only tour it with a guide… of which there were precisely none working that day.

However, we did get to muck around very briefly in the adjacent lavender fields playing “spot the butterfly” (which as it turned out, was infinitely more fun).