Wednesday, October 2nd - Day 22 - Les Villages Perche and L'Isle sur la Sorgue

 Today dawned cloudy and cool after a night of rain.  We decided to set off for Gordes, listed by Travel & Leisure in 2019 as the 'world's prettiest village'.  It is one of Provence's 'hilltop villages' and is south-east of Avignon, about a 30 minute drive from here. 

We set off following Google Maps on Android Auto and got as far as Carpentras, a reasonably large town due east of Courthezon, but once we got into town either Munroe missed a turn, or Google Maps turned wonky, and we ended up in a tangled maze of busy, one-way, narrow streets in the old (i.e. ancient) part of town.  Here our lack of internet connectivity really made things difficult because, although Deb had heard that there was a road closure, it wasn't until we were deep into the bowels of Carpentras that we found out where.  And, facing that block to our progress, we were left simply to find our way out of the town and follow signs!  To think we used to do this form of navigation all the time not so very long ago!!  And, as usual, Deb performed admiraably as navigator.

As is so often the case in our experience, a setback confronted while soaking and poking actually worked out to our advantage.  Following our paper map, with occasional glances at Google Maps on the car's display, we ended up taking smaller roads (still two lane, but narrow) than our original route had identified.  And fortuitously, we discovered a 'village perche' - Venasque - that turned out to be even prettier than Gordes, our original destination. Venasque is an ancient hill town that is perched precariously on the hilltop and overlooks the Nesque valley.  The narrow streets are lined with ancient townhouses and shops/restaurants all built from grey stone.  We contemplated having lunch at a lovely spot on the tiny town square but they only served meals outside for lunch and it was a bit too cool for that!  It is easy to forget that we are at about 43 degrees latitude - that is, further north than East Aurora (which is at 42 North) and not much further south than Nova Scotia (45 degrees).

VENASQUE

Venasque was noticeably quieter than Gordes, but there were many cyclists who were ready to tackle the challenge of the narrow, winding roads and the very steep ascent/descent!  

GORDES

It was a short drive through some winding roads and a remarkable gorge to go from there to Gordes.  As we drove up one hillside we pulled off to take some pictures of the warning signs for wild boar!  We arrived in Gordes from above - so we didn't fully appreciate the town's beauty until we were leaving and heading down to the valley floor.  We found a place to park and had a nice lunch of Croque Monsieur and coffee at a cafe just below the parking lot. The cafe doubled as a gift shop and - refreshingly - didn't accept credit cards!  

We wandered around the streets for awhile, and popped in on an art exhibit in a town hall.  There was a photo exhibit taking place but we decided against entering that.  The photographer had adorned a number of buildings in town with pictures of cats - and we thought immediately of Bruce & Renee!  By contrast with Venasque, Gordes was quite crowded and you heard more English spoken there than any other language!  Like Venasque, lots of bike riders - many of them older and on e-bikes (for a very good reason!).

Here is the view of the town from a vantage point as we left and headed to the valley floor below:

ISLES-SUR-LA-SORGUE

When we arrived, our Airbnb host Patricia recommended that we head to Isles-sur-la-Sorgue, a town quite near Gordes, to see its famous market - held Saturdays and Thursdays.  We didn't make it (found Monteau instead) so we decided to swing by to see what we might have missed (minus the market, that is!).  It turns out that the town is lovely - an island in the Sorgue - with lots of nice shops and cafes.  We stopped at a riverside cafe and had a nice coffee, seated Parisian cafe style facing the street/sidewalk/river and had fun people-watching with some of the locals.  Deb found a beautiful candy shop and we both enjoyed browsing through a small number of English-language books on a street display table at a second hand bookstore, and Munroe picked up a novel by J.P. Dunleavy that is set in Dublin and London.

We got home tired but happy around 5:30 - again after a couple minor side-trips that resulted (as earlier) either from Munroe's missing a turn or Google Maps having some fun with us.  We nibbled at some left-overs for dinner and watched a bit of TV (Patricia's place has sattelite TV and we've been enjoying English language coverage from CNN, Sky News (UK), Al Jazeera, and the BBC).  Another great day of soaking and poking!