ready for more purple?! there’s also plenty of yellow in this post, too 🙂

the boys fell asleep on our continued drive through the valensole peninsula, so when we got to a spectacular lavender field ian and i traded off staying in the car and walking through the flowers to take it all in. one of my favourite experiences of life will forever be wandering down the paths between the humps of purple, absolutely surrounded in lushness, breathing in the dreamy lavender aroma, the hum of millions of bees in my ears and a soft breeze in my hair. when i got to the middle of one field (i couldn’t see another human anywhere – it was just me and mother earth), i started singing. i couldn’t contain myself! i sang the hymn for the beauty of the earth and was filled to the brim with joy.

can you spot ian in the photo below??

i wish these photos could capture the divine smell, and the buzzing bee sounds. it was an immersive sensory experience.

we saw the lavender fields truly at their peak. as we drove down from the peninsula, we started to see fields that looked like this – half harvested:

and then we saw the harvester doing its work. it was fascinating to watch. we had some friends that went to this same spot just a week after us and the fields were entirely green instead of purple.

we kept driving towards our next airbnb, taking in iiiiincredible beauty all along the way, and had to pull over at a few insane sunflower fields to snap some photos. as much as i adored the lavender fields, i may have loved the sunflower fields a tiny bit more – yellow is my favourite colour!

our airbnb was up a windy road through the “pre-alps” and was perched on a vineyard-covered hill overlooking a teeny tiny little village. the views from the small pool above (and included with) our accommodations were stunning.

the boys played some bocce ball (provided by our airbnb host) while i took photos of the vineyard and mountains.

and moses and gabriel spent a good amount of time swimming, even though it was significantly colder at this spot than our last place with a pool! again moses jumped in about a hundred times and gabriel sat on the step and just did a few splashes 🙂

the next morning we explored that tiny little village a bit before we headed out towards stop 4 of our trip, lake annecy. we climbed stairs through the town to the very top and looked down into the vineyards and the river.

on our way out of the region, we stopped along the river bank and played with rocks and water and sticks and sunshine for a few minutes before continuing our drive.

seeing provence in peak bloom will always be a life highlight.