The launch of my freelance PR career, while exciting and returning the long-absent work-buzz to my life, has taken me a step further away from my elusive vineyard-owing goal. But we’ve realised France is just a skip away from our new home in Kent, and have started on Brittany-exploring plans in earnest. A grey rainy day in Brittany is surely not as dire as the same in Kent?
A brief pause in my endless “corporate” website tweaking brings me back to my unfinished tips on how to do Provence, and some of the best spots of all – Lourmarin (much-loved by many a second-home owning Brit), Cucuron (of A Good Year fame) and St Rémy de Provence (of Van Gogh fame).
Lourmarin
Lourmarin, one of my top-spots in the region (there are, admittedly, a few), seems to have it all. Being watched over by an ancient château surrounded by a sea of poppies, it is made up of beautiful rambling wine bar-lined cobbled streets, boutique after boutique, and a playground good enough to fill any climbing-frame deprived child with joy. It even has (shock) a café that knows what a flat white is (Monk’afe – 8 Rue de Temple).
The town is on the south side of the Luberon mountain range, so while it was close to us as the crow flies, we had to take a very windy and fairly queasy mountainous road that stretched from Bonnieux to Lourmarin. Location-wise it’s perfect (other than the queasy road) – not far from the buzz of Aix, but with easy access to Provence’s golden triangle of Bonnieux, Menérbes and Gordes.
The Friday market is legendary among tourists – it’s huge and has an amazing array of regional food and artisany gifty things – but I suspect whenever you go in the year it will be heaving. Prices are also extortionate. After another language mishap, Alistair ended up paying EUR 40 for two bits of cheese. Having explained he didn’t have enough cash (expecting it to be EUR 10 max), he was promptly presented with a tap and pay card machine. French markets are not what the once were..
Coming from the tranquility (i.e. zero nightlife) of Goult, Lourmarin offered a painfully tempting selection of smart evening dinner spots. We were just too far away to make it over the mountain for a meal out, and you wouldn’t even want to have one glass of wine and attempt that drive home.
Numero 9 looked perfect, but again we only got as far as perusing the menu and looking longingly at the terrace tables awaiting their evening candle lit ambiance.
Numero 9 date night 
FRENCH VEGGIE MENU!
If lunching there on market day, be sure to book. We had a bad time at the very picturesque and buzzy La Récréation, which had the first veggie menu option we’d seen in France. While trying to bounce Eadie to sleep in the Ergo baby, and taking more than the allowed five minutes to decide what I wanted to eat, the manager shouted at me with typical French hospitality “We are not ‘ere to sleep, we are ‘ere to make moneeeey”. Nice. The waiter also looked at Ally with total disgust when handing him his veggie lunch, and his sister-in-law the steak tartare. But their menu is beautiful and it’s in a good sun trap spot.
Bang in the middle of town is the shop for one of our favourite wines in the region – Domaine de Fontenille. A wonderful, fresh and crisp rosé, which comes from just down the road in Lauris – visit if you can. It’s a beautiful hotel, with a Michelin starred restaurant (Le Champ des Lunes), and a more casual (but still pretty fancy) Bistro (La Cuisine d’Amélie).
Alba approved 
Free quaffing on the streets of Lourmarin
Go for lunch and spend the afternoon with a couple of bottles on their gorgeous terrace (although the did ask us to move on by about 4 o’clock..) It’s perfect for kids – huge gardens, chickens (which we never managed to find), the ubiquitous donkeys, and I’m sure a Petanque pitch in there somewhere.
Your spot for the afternoon 
Idyllic Fontenille – almost as lovely as their wine
Lourmarin is also home to another of our favourite wines, Château Fontvert. Wonderful stuff. The vineyard is tucked behind the field of poppies that frame the Château de Lourmarin. Another very low key vineyard – you’ll be surprised at how good their wine is.
Go for the slightly pricier Le Mourre – drier and crisper, and 100% Grenache which is quite rare I think, at least outside of Bandol.
We were even lucky enough to be invited to an epic wedding at the Château de Lourmarin, with friends of ours from Singapore getting married there in June. What a spot. It was just a challenge to try and look as chic as all the Parisian guests.
As Parisian as we get
Cucuron
We discovered Cucuron a bit late, finally making it on our last week despite having been on my must-go list for 4 months. I’m a big fan of A Good Year (Russell Crowe/Marion Cotillard) – probably the root of our Provence adventure – and the first date scene was filmed at the famous central village water feature (too small for a lake, too big for a pond). Despite it’s Hollywood connections, and despite us going in fairly peak summer, Cucuron was lovely and tranquil, making a welcome retreat from bustling Lourmarin.
The restaurants and cafés that sit around the water are wonderfully low key, except for the perfect looking La Petite Maison de Cucuron – Michelin starred (and therefore we didn’t cross the threshold, but it was also closed). Cucuron was also the place that we realised, very belatedly, that overall its best to not even attempt any form of eating establishment with our feral children, and a baguette sandwich and Orangina on a bench goes down just as well, and is far more relaxing for all involved.
Cucuron is a beautiful, small and picturesque village to explore. Wind your way up to the church – there are some lovely gift shops and boutiques, as well as decent boulangeries to buy said sandwiches for the bench. Even on a hot June day, the streets were silent and we must have only seen a handful of tourists.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
This bustling, modern and very stylish town lies at the foot of the beautiful Alpilles mountain range. We loved it, as do many Brits who have chosen this as their French home, or holiday home location (although there is officially nowhere to get a flat white).
St Remy gets the real estate research going
Market day is Wednesday – it’s big, and busy, but wonderfully sprawling through the beautiful town. You’ll find a cheese stall at the end of every cobbled lane, and oysters in the middle of the car park. It’s also very well-known and therefore VERY busy. Go early, to even get a parking spot near to the centre (the main car park is taken over by the market).
The Alba and Margot gang 
Maison Mistral 
Bistrot Les pieds dans l’eau 
Space for the little things to crawl free at Maison Mistral
Take your time wandering the winding, boutique-lined streets in the centre of town. There are lovely little restaurants everywhere, but Boulevard Victor Hugo seemed to have the best selection and lots of lovely outside seating (but on a main road). We discovered the beautiful Bistrot Les Pieds Dans l’eau – inside the Maison Mistral (not sure which is the name of the restaurant) – huge terrace for kids to roam in, a couple of great homeware shops and a sprawling arty restaurant inside that was screaming for big wine-filled group dinners.
Maison Mistral
Perhaps the most sensible with-kids lunch option is to find a good crêperie – our go-to solution in most towns, as what child says no to a cheese and ham filled pancake presented with a runny egg on top? Crêperie Lou Planet is the place to go – a quiet little sun trap (but also a Mistral trap when you’re there at the wrong time).
The Saint-Paul de Mausole is definitely worth a visit – it’s the asylum that Van Gogh admitted himself to in 1889, and where he painted his room, as well as many paintings of irises from the gardens and many others. The garden is more interesting than the rooms inside, although Alba enjoyed climbing into Van Gogh’s bed..
Finally, yet another “wish we’d made it” restaurant just outside St Rémy is Bistrot du Paradou. A real traditional local French bistrot. Often full, with family gatherings , on a Sunday, it looks like a perfect spot – and about 15 minutes south of St Rémy, so an easy and welcome escape if the town’s restaurants are all heaving on market day.
Checked napkins and a lot of vin du table 
Idyllic Bistrot du Paradou
By way of Provence 