Lavender Season in Provence: What You Need to Know

If you've ever seen a photo of Provence in June and thought you needed to go there immediately, same. This week we're talking all things Provence during lavender season, which is hands-down one of the most beautiful places either of us has ever been. Lovely with a capital L.

We cover the lavender fields (yes, you can actually walk into them, unlike the tulips), the farm stands set up along the roads where you can stock up on honey candies, soap and candles and basically anything lavender can be put in. We also get into the stunning Gorges du Verdon and Lac de Sainte-Croix, the tiny ridiculously French village we stayed in and the Airbnb situation that earned us our one and only bad review. Spoiler: they wanted us to do the laundry. European laundry. With no dryer. Rebuttal filed.

Plus timing tips for catching peak bloom and what to know before you go.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome back. I'm Lisa. And I'm Erin. And this is the Getaways Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Spring has sprung, people. Spring has sprung. Except the last few days has not felt very springy here.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Well, it's the Netherlands spring has sprung. I mean, it's always cold, right? Oh my God. But the the lows are like pretty low, but the the afternoons tend to be warm.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

But the wind is blowing like an Arctic chill. Yeah. Today's not good.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

But the flowers are officially the tulips are officially here. They are. They are strong. Everything's open for the gardens. So but today we're going to talk about another kind of flower.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Oh, and my favorite spring place, I think.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Yeah. I mean, this was somewhere that I had always wanted to go, but then I actually read a book that made me want to go like the next day. And that is Provence.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

So when we went on this trip, that's the first time you had ever been to?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

I'd been to Aix. Well, I hadn't been there during this the lavender season. I'd been to like certain cities in Provence, but not to the area, with the exception of Aix-en-Provence. I had not been to the other cities. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

And we had also been to Aix-en-Provence before then.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

It's magical there.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

So this season, obviously, it shifts a little bit depending on weather, but it's usually June, like mid to late June, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

And it is it's hard to explain because it's just like fields and fields and fields of lavender.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yes. And you feel like miles and miles or kilometers and kilometers.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Well, and like I just remember rolling down the window and just being slapped in the face by the scent, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

And there's two kinds.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Two kinds of lavender. Yeah, remember? Well, there's the stinky blue one. Remember, that smelled a little bit like a little And they're bigger. Yeah, but it was that lavender, though, is the question.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Well, they're all planted with the lavender.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

So I yeah, I don't know. But those have a very different fragrance. Yeah. A little like the B.O. The B of the O.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

What I love about it, and we'll talk more about it as we dive in, but is that you just stop and you can just walk into somebody's lavender field.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah. I well, I think that that's what kind of people think about the tulips, is that you can just kind of wander around, which you can't. No, you can't. So, but this you actually can. I mean, some of my favorite pictures of Rex and me are just running through the lavender fields.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

We're doing full-on photo shoots. Lisa's wearing a cute little dress and posing with Rex, running with her hands up. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's what you're supposed to do. It's um we stayed in a town. What was that town called that we stayed in? Mon Montagnac Monpezo? Oh, exactly. Thank you. We stayed in a tiny, tiny town in Provence.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

I would call it a village, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, a village. In a pretty nice Airbnb. They weren't so nice though.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

They did not like us at all.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

They did not like us.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

But this just going back to the village, the village was so ridiculously French. I mean, it was like Belle could have started singing walking down the street. Like it was stupid.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

It was so nice. And it probably had two restaurants.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Yeah. Yeah, no, no grocery stores. And like the local bar. Yeah. And we were the foreigners. And because everybody lived there.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Everybody lived there. And Lisa speaks fluent French, don't you think?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

I can get by, but uh but these people didn't understand you. No, no. Well, I think they chose to not understand me because they they, I mean, obviously I don't sound like a French person.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

So the apartment house was really lovely.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

It was.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

But one thing that you should be aware of, and we should do a whole like fails and stuff on Airbnbs. Although we haven't had that many. Well, no, but there's all there's some little quirks. Quirks that people probably don't know that they don't stay in Airbnbs as much as we do that we could talk about. But we've never really encountered or we stay away from Airbnbs. We stay away from Airbnbs that don't have linens, usually.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Well, yeah, because it's a pain in the butt to have that all the way over.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

And we stay away from Airbnbs that you have to do all the cleaning.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Because I don't that's no.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Well, okay, so the thing about this one was nobody nobody spoke a word of English. And so all the instructions were in French, but I don't even know if we saw the written instructions.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yes, we did because we followed every single instruction.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

And then but the woman who checked us in, you know, went through everything again in French. And the the phrase was repeated, leave it like you found it. Leave it nice. Yeah. So in our mind, that meant we swept, we had all the kitchen cleaned, all the dishes away, trash was out, stripped all the beds, stripped all the beds, put it right by the washing machine.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Not what they wanted.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, for them, they wanted it to be literally ready for the next guest. So they wanted us to do the laundry and make the beds into clean the bathrooms. Yeah, like scrub the toilets. Like we were there for two nights. Like we would have spent, I mean, even just to do the laundry, like European laundry takes a long time.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Like we would have had to wash the night before. But I've never experienced somebody that wanted you to do the laundry and have the beds clean because seriously, there we don't have dryers here. So the wash takes about anywhere from two to three hours in the wash, and then you have to dry it. And they didn't have a yard, so it would have been drying on the inside, which would have taken at least 12 hours to dry. So I didn't, but they were they were not like uh review. It was the only bad Airbnb Airbnb review we've ever gotten. Yeah. And I I did my rebuttal. Rebutal? Rebutal Rebutal Rebuttal. I I rebutted it. And it didn't it didn't hurt us.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Like we've never no, but it's just it's disappointing because we really we And we liked them. And we wanted to go back, but we certainly won't go back there. Not to that one.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah, but it but it is okay, so back to Provence.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yes, so it is lovely with a capital L. And it the the season is short, but if you can get there during the height of lavender season season, you will not be sorry. Like it is really, really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

And if the summer s starts off mild, it does, it can go all the way down to the room.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Yeah, it can fluctuate a little bit, yeah. Okay. So we uh while there, we went to a bunch of other little villages. We did like driving around the area, which we I guess is where we should start because that's just cool in and of itself.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Okay, so Valenci, I think, is that how you would say it? Yeah. It's it's it's in my mind, it's just kind of a region. Right? There's like is there a is there a village called Valenci? Oh, I don't know. Well, if there is, we didn't go to it. But it's a good story. We did miles and miles of anyway, you turned lavender fields, lavender fields, lavender fields, and between each some of the lavender fields, there would be like almost like food trucks or food stands. Yeah, like like little pop-ups, like yeah, because like where you bought the soap dishes, that was a truck, that was a little truck.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yeah, so it's like the the farmer or whoever owns the land just puts out like a little stand where you can come and buy things that they actually either make or create or whatever, but it's obviously all lavender-based, but it's everything from honey and cookies and soap and lotions and candles, and I mean uh it runs the gamut of anything you could imagine that's lavender could be put in.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

I bought probably no joke, at least three pounds of those honey candies.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

And I ate them all before we got back to the Netherlands.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

They're so good. Well, and it was right before my nephew got married, and so I wanted to kind of bring something from there. So I got everybody, every household a soap dish. Yeah. And like, you know, they have a little picture of the lavender fields and whatever. But I mean, it's just like it's just cute. It's so stuff. And you get to meet the person who's actually like doing it, yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

So we did that, we stopped in tons of fields and took pictures and videos. I mean, it's a relaxing trip. But before we did the lavender fields, we went to the the lake.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

The lake, yeah. Yeah. Which do you remember the name of the lake? I think we already do.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

The lake was called Saint Croix. And I know that because isn't there a drink in America called Saint Croix? La Croix. It's La Croix, isn't it? I don't know. The lake was called Saint Lake Saint Croix, and it's attached, it's part of the gorge. It's the same it feeds into the gorge.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Right, right. And the gorge is called Gorge de Verdon, which is absolutely breathtaking. I mean, the the water is I mean, aquamarine doesn't even begin to explain it's so beautiful, it's incredible. And we saw it from quite high.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

We didn't go into the gorge part of the lake. He went, let Rex went into the lake. We didn't go right. It was chilly.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Yeah, I mean it was still it was June, so it was still like you know, not quite as hot. But the the gorge is really quite extraordinary. It's beautiful, and I'm sure you've seen pictures of it and probably didn't know it was that, but like you can rent little boats and like kick around and people hike in the area. People obviously swim. You can, I think you can jet ski. I think it's you can do all pretty much water sports, but it's it's really, really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

There's pictures up on the website of it.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

But yeah, I mean that's that's a definite standout in the area, and then the lake where we took Rexy, you can do like a big walk-around.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Huge walk around. Yeah, there's a like little beach cafes there, lots of different little beaches, restaurants. It's really cute.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

There's even a camping area if you wanted to do like the the cheap seats.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah, it was really cute.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah. And it was okay, so the woman who checked us in actually said that Rex was allowed. But then at a certain point, somebody said that he wasn't. So we don't actually know what the dog law is there.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

But he swam quite a bit. We we just followed her direction.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah, so I think we figured the local knows best, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Nobody there said anything.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

No, no, no, no. And there were other dogs there, they weren't swimming. But anyway, it was a really nice just kind of place to lounge, which take a picnic. Several days. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Now mind you, we're we don't have a lot of detailed experiences to talk about because we were only there three nights.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Was it three? I thought it was only two.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Maybe it was just two nights because yeah, because we were just kind of doing a trip during Dylan's school trip. So we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Yeah, so it was just it was just Rex and us. Dylan was not there because he was he was doing his own thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah, so we may have only been there two. No, we were there two full days, I think. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

And then my favorite place. And mine. I mean, this little village was so ridiculously beautiful. Samari, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Well, there's a word before it.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Mustia. Mustia samari. Yeah. And it is kind of built into the rock almost. Like a cliff. Yeah. And the whole backdrop of the town is a waterfall that kind of splits it in two.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

It is so fairy tale gorgeous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

No, it really. And somebody told us, didn't it? Wasn't it like at dinner or something? Somebody told us that that was somewhere we should go.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

And I feel like I found it on some really obscure blog.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Okay. But anyway.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

I had no idea what we were walking through.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Right, right, right, right. Incredibly beautiful, charming. Tiny. Tiny, but the most like ridiculously cute French cafes, and we had pizza there for lunch.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

We did cuter places.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

We just Well, and there was a place down below, so that like where the at the base of the waterfall, remember, there was like a fancy restaurant down there, like right on the water. Well, and I'm sure we were wearing inappropriate clothes for a fancy restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Was Rex with us? No, I don't think he was. Now my favorite part of that. Yeah, I know. Oh they have so ceramics, I guess, are a big thing there, right? They had this. We went in the ceramic store and they had like these little like old-fashioned pill jars basically that were hand painted and they said like opium, cocaine, marijuana. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

But I mean the whole place was filled with like lots of other really good stuff, plates and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

But I particularly was gravitating towards those and would have bought all of them except they were like 85 bucks a piece. Yeah, they were. So I got the opium and one and all I got the opium one because I thought that was the least offensive if guests came in and saw it sitting next to my bed. Because I didn't want people to go, oh, like she's got a big jar of cocaine next to her bed. Because I don't I don't have a big jar of opium. It's got a bunch of magnesium pills in it.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

So they are very pretty though, and they're and it's just very it's very antique-y looking. I mean, you you could expect those to be like in the old Florence pharmacy. Yeah, yeah, like the oldest pharmacy in the world.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah, definitely. So they're they're so fun. So if anybody's ever looking for a gift for me, you can't really you have to go there to get them. There's you can't buy them online.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Yeah, no, I mean it's definitely a specialty.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Oh nice.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

But all of their stuff is, I mean, the from dishes to serving platters to pitcher, I mean, everything you can imagine. It's all really, really nice and just pricey and special. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not stuff you you know, you wouldn't go there every day and go buy a new set of dishes, but it's stuff that's really special and a good reminder of the region and the crazy waterfall town.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

What else do we do?

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Like, that's I mean, that's every morning we'd go to the lake.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

So that was we did that three mornings, I guess. The first day we just drove all the lavender farms. Yeah. The second day we did more lavender and went to this town. And then the next day we left. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

We went to that one town to go grocery shopping, and you guys did a hike. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't even remember what that town was called. It's a bigger town.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yeah, it's just a pretty area though, because this this part that we did a walk through, like there was a little creek that went through the whole thing, and then there were like cows off in the distance, and this like rolling green hills. Like it was just it's just very like beautiful countryside and a beautiful area of France.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Because I don't even think we ate dinner out. We ate it at home.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Well, I got sick the last night. Do you remember that?

unknown 14:54

No.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

I had like a raging fever the night before we left.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Oh, you did?

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yeah, so I think we stayed home that night because I didn't feel like well we definitely stayed home that night.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

And I don't remember I don't even know where we would go then the other night. I don't know. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

It was very eventful. No, but it uh it sounds a little a little uh on the light side as we're talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

But it's yeah, but it's a it's you would do you wouldn't do Provence, you wouldn't come on a two-week trip in Provence, you would go to San Trope and you would do the like at the coach of T. Yeah, because the Riviera is like an hour. You're hour away from the city. Right. So you would add it with different things like Aix in Provence.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

But again, that's not a very big town.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah. But I mean, I think that you spend like, you know, a couple days. You go in June if you can. Yeah. If you can't, it's still lovely. But it but it's uh just that much better with the lavender. It's like, you know, coming to the Netherlands. It's like if you can come in spring and see them, it's fantastic. You, you know, there's things to see all year round, but it's just a special thing to that specific place that makes it worth it at that time of year.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Yeah. Well, now, and what I can say about the year-round, it is France. The food is gonna be phenomenal, the wine is always gonna be great, and it's affordable for the most part.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

And it is a very, very like this specific area that we're talking about is naturally beautiful with the gorge and all the water, and it is charmingly beautiful with the architecture and the built-in to the rocks villages and all the sort of like personality of that area.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah. So it's definitely worth it to go. I definitely want to go back because I definitely want to get some more of those.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah. No, I would definitely go back in a second. In fact, what should we do uh in June? Oh, move. All right, well, thank you for listening. We hope you go to Provence.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Check out the website w dot the getaways with the Z dot com. And we'll see you next week.