Heroes Not Zombies

I was hoping to get here before the lavender was cropped and I just made it. Quite a few fields have been harvested already but I still found some in full bloom. What I can’t send you, unfortunately, is the smell of the lavender in the air. It gives you the sensation of the whole world having a lavender scent, and while that might sound as if it would be overwhelming, in fact, it isn’t. The scent of the growing lavender is somehow both more pervasive yet less intense than the cropped plant. Quite amazing.
I’m sure there are many parts of Provence where you can find the lavender, but I explored the area around the village of Valensole. Here’s one of the most prominent shops in the village –

It’s a honey shop. A whole shop selling honey made by bees who live around the lavender fields. See how the lavender influences so much of life here? Not just in the colours of the fields, but influencing the colours of the paints used to decorate the shops and houses, and stimulating your nose with its scent and your taste buds through the honey.

Here’s a mural on a boarded up, disused shop –

Yes, the fields really do look like that. The lavender is grown in long rows on a very pale, sandy soil.

Some of the fields seem to stretch away forever………

And some have quaint ruins strategically left in the middle of the field for photographic reasons (just kidding!)