This is my favorite view of my favorite place. It’s so much more intimate than the usual views of the village, yet instantly recognizable if you know it, because of the clock tower and the Catholic Church tower. And I love the way the pathway seems to draw me in.

I know it’s a tiny village off the road from Sarlat to Terrasson in the Dordogne, but I don’t know the name and can’t figure it out from looking at the map. It’s been bugging me lately because I have my screen saver set to the folder from our 2007 trip, and I keep seeing it and wondering. We looked out over this view while having lunch in a little restaurant whose proprietor also did stone sculptures like the one at the right. I mentioned the lunch in my blog entry for the day, but didn’t bother with the name.

I guess we’ll just have to go back and find it. As I remember, the food wasn’t spectacular, but it was such a lovely day in the little garden with the mannerly cat and lichen-covered statues of fat little animals that it didn’t matter.

Is it just me? Does everyone else keep better notes of things like this?

But I’ve finally started to work on them, and here is the first result, a selection of photos from our October 2005 and May 2007 trips to Provence.

These aren’t travelog photos showing the main tourist attractions, but just images I love for their color, texture or something that transports me back to Provence.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

After one last walk down to the village this morning for cafe au lait and a cookie for the dog, we’ll turn in the car in Avignon this afternoon and take the TGV to CDG. Tomorrow we fly Air France to San Francisco, BART across the Bay and Amtrak home.

This really did turn out to be our best trip ever. The only thing I would change if I had it do do over would be to stay somewhere less touristy in the Dordogne, where I didn’t have to see 35,000 cans of foie gras every time I walked down the street.

And maybe I wouldn’t have eaten so much… nah, I enjoyed every bite!

It’s fairy-tale beautiful, yet it’s a real community, not just a tourist destination.

It’s hard to imagine that Lourmarin just grew without anyone planning to make it so beautiful. It’s almost as if it had been artfully arranged by a set designer: the profile of the village with the Luberon mountains in the background, the Renaissance chateau set off from the main village by that pretty meadow of tall grass, the narrow winding streets that join to form Place de l’Ormeau with its group of cafes at the heart of the village, the winding back streets with brightly colored or faded blue shutters on elegant old buildings, roses climbing stone walls.

The cafes in Place de l’Ormeau are full of charm and appeal for visitors, yet they are the community living room for the people who live here (and their dogs). Everyone seems to pass through, linger and chat several times a day. One big soft-eyed yellow dog knows that every cup of espresso comes with a “dog” cookie that is his by divine right. I don’t argue with him because his face is too sweet.

The local school is in a building that is breathtakingly beautiful and austere, like a museum, yet filled with the sounds of children’s laughter. The school playground is completely surrounded by buildings and sheltered from the view of strangers.

The dominant feature of Lourmarin is a clock tower, yet as hard as you try, you can’t find its base. It’s like it just magically appears over the village. I love this mystery! The clock tower chimes the hour, as does the Catholic Church tower, 2 or 3 minutes earlier or later. I don’t know which is which, but the first one is anything but melodious. On our first visit, we were right in the center of the village and the bells startled me right out of bed every hour for the first few nights. Now, from a bit of a distance, the bells are familiar and restful.

There are fountains everywhere, mostly old ones covered with thick green moss. They are illuminated at night, and a walk through the winding back streets in the dark is magical.

The Friday market is arranged under a row of magnificent sycamores overlooking the meadow and the chateau.

Every morning we’ve been here I’ve walked into the village to explore for an hour or two before meeting Frank at the cafe. Every day I’ve been more charmed than the day before. We leave tomorrow, but I’m already thinking about when we can return.

This morning I visited the Lourmarin cemetery, just down the road from our apartment. Although the entire cemetery is fascinating, the “star” attraction is Albert Camus, who died in an automobile accident in 1960 and is buried here. As graves go, his is a nice one, covered with lavender, iris, and oleander and only a small weathered stone.

From there, I circled around the village and entered at the Mini-Golf footpath, which leads to the village via residents’ vegetable gardens. My fascination with vegetable gardens is endless, so I loved this. It looks like the veggies are a few weeks behind mine at home.

Then, before we left for our day’s explorations, I joined Frank for coffee and people-watching again. This is where the biggest mishap of our day occurred when a bird deposited a huge and disgusting mess right on the front page of our International Herald Tribune (splattering Frank’s shirtfront too). I forgot to ask Frank what the article was that earned such a comment. I guess I’ll get by for another day without news!

We drove a big loop up past L’Isle Sur La Sorge etc to Bedoin for lunch, then part way up Mount Ventoux and back through Sault. A gorgeous drive!

Yesterday morning I set out to follow our routine from home and go for a walk and meet Frank later for coffee. It’s only about a 10-minute walk into town from here, so I improvised by cutting behind the chateau assuming there had to be a trail across that meadow which would let me walk a complete circle of the village before meeting him. Hah! After what seemed like about 45 minutes (but was probably less) on a nice trail through the woods leading away from Lourmarin, I finally encountered a little dirt road that crossed the stream and turned back toward the village. It turned out to be a great walk, but I still need to make my circuit of the village.

We frittered away the rest of the morning over coffee at one of the cafes. It was a holiday, so there were lots of visitors around, and the people watching was great! That led to lunch, which led to a nap. Finally late in the afternoon we managed to squeeze in a beautiful drive completely around the Petit Luberon before dinner.

Life is good!

After reading about both Kevin’s and Kathy and Charley’s hikes in this area, I jumped at the chance to join the inaugural hike of Kevin’s new informal hiking club. What can I say? It was perfect, good walking, good conversation and a nice lunch in the shade of a cliff overlooking the Durance River Valley. The weather was just right, sunny but with a cool breeze.

Now my task is to talk Frank into at least one more hike before we leave!

Sunday promised to be a beautiful day, so after breakfast on our terrace (did I mention that Les Olivettes delivers a basket with fresh baguette and pastires to our door every morning?), we grabbed the guidebook and our map and set off.

It turned out to be a glorious day! Once we left the N100 on the other side of Apt, we seemed to have all of Provence to ourselves. The wheat is still soft and green and just showing its tassels, the lavendar plants are still tidy little lumps in a row, and the poppies and wildflowers are everywhere.

The drive is through a lightly populated, out of the way area in the high country of Provence, on mostly one lane roads that wind through the hills and dip occasionally down into pretty valleys.

We stopped and walked around three or four small perched villages, most quiet and nearly deserted on Sunday afternoon, but we encountered what appeared to be a big boules tournament in Viens that was fun to watch.

I often wonder if Bob and Sue Winn, the authors of this guidebook, have any idea how many memorable days they have given to Provence visitors with their backroads tours. I hope so!

Just one more:

I’m completely pleased with this apartment. The only surprise to me was how fabulous our view is. I can see both the classic view of the village AND the chateau! It’s also good to have high-speed internet access again for the first time in two weeks, although I’m finding it exhausting to try to get this blog up to date!

I’m so happy to be here. Lourmarin has changed dramatically since we first visited in 99, when it was a sleepy little village with a surprising number of good restaurants. I’m told it’s because it’s become a popular weekend destination for people from Aix, but it’s become very upscale. The weekly market is much larger than the quaint little affair it used to be, there’s a big new apartment development and what looks like a new hotel, and shops, shops, shops, where there used to be only two or three.

The nice thing is that they’ve done all this without really harming the charm of the village at all. That central collection of cafes is the same, the chateau is the same, the lovely meadow and the street lined with sycamore trees at the edge of the village, the fountains, and all the rest.

We walked around a bit last Friday during the rainy market here, but other than that I haven’t really had a chance to explore yet. I think this afternoon after we return from our hike with Kevin, I’ll take my camera out for a good look around.