Aviation Tour - Maps on www.bankleft.com

Vaucluse

Flying south down the Rhone to Carpentras in Vaucluse displayed the sharpest change in climate and terrain that we've seen. Gone with the alpine terrain was the crist air and orthographic cloud, in their place the wide sun baked plain of the southern Rhone punctuated by granite outcrops. With ninety minutes aloft, we farewelled the thin, lankey, blue eyed, fair haired people living in steep roofed timber chalets and approached the more squat, darker haired mediterranean people in solid, square, earth rendered bulidings with semi cylindraical roof tiles unchanged in design since the roman era. This house amused as a modern example in the vernacular.

This is the only occasion so far on the trip where we have selected destination on the basis of outside air temperature overhead the airfield at one thousand feet. Unless you have a more pressing reason or better information on which to choose your destination, I can highly recommend it. Features of Provence were everywhere. Stepping out of the plane onto the dry hardy vegitation yielded a rich hearbal aroma. There seem to be several local wild variants of rosemary as well as other unknown fragrant herbs.

An overnight under the wing in Montellimar was deemed necessary on the basis that they are renown for their nougat and lavendar honey (and their lavendar honey nougat).


Resisting the temptations of the first two nougat shops on the main boulevarde proved prudent as the third was the authentic factory outlet of one of the main local producers with an excellent bin of factory seconds. We stocked up on white and black nougat (which turns out to be a honey toffee with almonds) which represent either end of the afterlife spectrum and are each eaten here at Christmas as two of the traditional 13 desserts that must al be tasted for luck throughout the new year.


Pont D'Avignon made from Profiterole. Excellent.