On the bridge between Ascension and le weekend, Friday, we headed first to Carpentras, for the market, and after getting stuck in a horrendous traffic jam and seeing no place to park even a toy bike, we abandoned that idea and headed for Gordes, another of the region's perched villages.
This village was, as the others were, built as a fortified town to protect its inhabitants from marauding hordes. The foundations of the village houses, however, are cellars equipped for making olive oil, collecting and storing water, and storing enormous quantities of food. By 1950, though, it had been abandoned for so long that it was a pile of rubble. A wealthy French family bought much of it and started an archeological excavation and restoration, and now there is a museum of the cellars which is absolutely incredible.
The village itself might be one of the most beautiful in the region, and it's also one of the largest. We spent all day there, walking around, and felt that there was much more to be seen, and we intend to go back. The houses on the edges have massive terraced gardens, built out of the foundations of earlier houses that were too far gone to restore. The use of the existing foundations gives the gardens a feeling of authenticity and aesthetic sympathy.
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