Provence Trips & Tours

Provence rewards the unhurried. Spend a morning in the hilltop villages of the Luberon: Gordes, Ménerbes and the half-ruined Oppède-le-Vieux, with Sénanque Abbey sitting in its valley below. Then swap stone for sea on a boat trip from Cassis through the Calanques, where white limestone cliffs drop into water the colour of bottle glass. Wine lovers can taste their way round Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Gigondas (your driver-guide takes the wheel) or sip rosé at a family domaine, and keen cooks can find out what a fistful of Provençal herbs does to a summer tomato. For culture, you have Van Gogh's Arles, the Roman aqueduct at Pont du Gard, the papal palace in Avignon and Marseille's old Le Panier quarter. The Camargue adds white horses, black bulls and flamingos in shrimp-pink. If it's the lavender of Valensole you're after, plan carefully: the fields are purple from roughly late June to mid-July, and after that they're just stubble. For something rarer, we'd book a private visit to a family chandelier workshop or a day canyoning in the Gorges du Verdon. Bring an appetite. And comfortable shoes.