Gordes, Provence

Gordes is a trendy hilltop village in the Luberon Valley of Provence. It's popular with wealthy Parisians. It catches the afternoon sunlight across it's clustered houses and drops steeply into a broad valley. The place is old and well-trodden but very photogenic.

The french homewares shops are very chic but we went to the boulangerie/patissserie and chose wisely in the form of citron tart, cafe eclair, paris brest and a new favourite with toffee flavoured pastry and vanilla creme with raspberries. They were as good as they sound.









The roads are naturally narrow and barely fit a campervan, let alone oncoming traffic, let alone an oncoming lorry on a narrow incline next to a ravine. This only happened once but to quote Jood "it was almost brown trousers time". The lorry diver knew not to mess with us and parked against the cliff wall as we cruised past with centimetres to spare.

Our campground tonight has extensive views over the valley, with vineyards arranged geometrically and stone walls containing tiny stone houses and patches of green and gold. The swimming pool is empty but comes with an interesting set of regulations including "no board shorts" (Arkady wouldn't cope), "no shoes poolside" and "no skin conditions or weird rashes that look contagious unless you have certification to say it is safe". Maybe it's just yellow boardies and light blue boardies with orange flowers that aren't allowed.

The campground has a small bar area with wifi, drinks and tonight a jazz trio providing a warm atmosphere to captivate an appreciative camping audience who know their "kumbayas" from their George Bensons and Miles Davis'. Actually they did great covers  including "Ipanema" (I know, I know...) Stevie Wonder and Sex Pistols (maybe not).
I also discovered possibly the cheapest beer in Europe. Finkbrau pilsener for 29 eurocents a can at Lidl supermarkets. Made me think of a great beer ad campaign. "I'm finkin about Finkbrau."