Women from Canada and from the USA have joined me this week to tour Provence. Provence is known for its breath-taking sceneries, its historical hilltop villages and its art. We saw all that, but its natural beauty was at the heart of this week’ s delights.
Camargue is always a highlight, with the visit of Thibaud Ranch, where Olivier and his friends always put on a show just for us.
Roussillon with its ocher walk is a kind of fairy land, with magical colors.
In Les Baux, houses are nested in cliffs around the medieval castle, or down below the village walls.
In Saint Remy de Provence, Van Gogh also discovered the beauty of nature and depicted it on many of his paintings. We visited the hospital where he stayed and painted a few months before his death.
We took pictures of all of that, and we will again tomorrow, when we will admire the Pont du Gard, one of the most impressive roman ruins in Provence.
To find out more about our coming trips, visit www.frenchescapade.com
Jackie Grandchamps obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology in Belgium, and then moved to the U.S. in 1995 to conduct cancer research at Stanford University in California. Her heart has always been in travel however, and she turned her passion into a full time job in 2003 when she launched her travel business, French Escapade offering an authentic travel experience to women.
She says, “I wanted to make my dream come true: sharing my love of traveling and giving people the opportunity to really experience a different culture. Instead of the traditional ‘tourist’ sightseeing trip to France, I wanted to immerse very small groups of women in the culture, let them meet locals, eat authentic cuisine and ‘live’ an authentic experience. That’s how French Escapade was born.”
