An American in Provence

At the end of July, I reserved one night in a hotel in Manosque, a village in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region, about an hour northeast of Marseille. We went on his motorcycle, me with a backpack carrying all our stuff for two days.

In Manosque, we stopped by the L'Occitane factory, museum, and gift shop. We took the tour, got some free samples, and bought a few items but not too much as we were traveling light.

Afterwards, we checked in to our hotel, and went for lunch in Manosque, in the city center.

An afternoon nap, then we took his motorcycle to Forcalquier, "crowned by a ruined casted and domed chapel of the 19th century Notre-Dame-de-Provence, Forcalquier is an intriguing shadow of its former self."

A long steep walk to the top of the hill, but the views were amazing. We walked back down and had a drink in the old town, then drove back to Manosque. We had dinner in town again, and as it was a Friday night, it was quite lively. There were several bands playing and tons of people. We shared a bottle of red wine, and were a bit tipsy by the end of the night.

Saturday morning was market day, and the parking area was packed. We had a light breakfast in the center of town, then checked out of our hotel and hopped on his motorcycle. We headed east, towards Valensole, hoping to see fields of lavendar. We saw fields, but I guess the lavendar had already been picked. We then headed towards Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, a town on the side of a hill and known for its ceramics. We walked around a bit, including up to a cave with religious relics inside, then had lunch at a restaurant perched above a river running down from the mountains through the town. We hoped to do the tour around the Gorges du Verdon, but didn't have enough time. We drove by a picnic/boating area and stopped for a bit, but it was hot and we didn't have our swimsuits with us. We then headed back to Marseille, by the small departmental roads, winding through various small towns. We got back to Marseille just in time for pizza and a movie night, thank goodness!

We had a great trip and enjoyed seeing an area we had never seen before, as up until now, we have visited mainly the Bouches-du-Rhone area, the Vaucluse, and Nimes.