...and the mountain did become violet

This may or may not turn out to be the longest post I have ever done. But that would be fitting because it may or may not have been one of the very most memorable days of my life. I have to say, so far France is living up to its rep. We'll see how it goes from here on out.

We started off the day with some great customer service. We needed to get a few little things and a few very big things, and we were able to get it all organized and taken care of with pretty much no hitches. Which was pretty impressive, considering that we planned this somewhat complicated day just the night before. Spur-of-the-moment plans don't always work out this well! We were pretty happy. The most notable bit of customer service came from this man, Jean-Marc, the bike rental guy:

He  literally went digging through the trash to find materials we needed to get bikes into the back of a very tiny car. I won't go into too much detail, but it was hysterical. He also told us that if we got pulled over, to just say, "I don't understand!" Classic.

Road-tripping it up in France. We were tempted, though, to just forget it and head over to Barcelona. So glad that we didn't.

The drive was great. Every time we would see a cute city with a cute church, we would get so excited. We drove through the beautiful Luberon valley, which seemed like the Yellowstone of France. Not quite, but almost. We were so excited about seeing our first lavender fields as we were driving along. We just had to stop and take a picture, bien sur.

And then we passed this cute castle, so of course we had to stop again and take some more pictures. 

We arrived at our destination early in the afternoon, but the visitors' information place was closed, so we got a baguette, sat down and had some lunch. We each got a mini millefeuille, which was delicious.

We had just a little while to wander around this little town, Apt, which we thought was straight out of Beauty and the Beast (I thought that until about two days ago, when we went to this other town that was honest-to-goodness straight out of Beauty and the Beast, or really just any fairytale).

I loved this store sign. It is so exactly perfect for the area. And what's more is that you can see our reflection in the mirror!

Some pictures of this cute little town:

Inside this church:

I thought this was funny. Over the baptismal "font", there was this picture of Jesus' baptism--you can see John the Baptist just sprinkling water over his head.

So the visitors' office finally opened. We had planned to take a bus up to this other city and then ride our bikes back down, but the lady at the office was like, no, there aren't any buses. So much for that plan! She did, however, give us a little map that would lead us right past a few good lavender fields. She told us that the ride would be straight uphill, but we decided to brave it. But boy, she wasn't kidding!  That bike ride was brutal, and we had to stop every once in a while to take a drink or take a few pictures. Finally, after what felt like a long time (really it was maybe a little over an hour, but it was super hot outside, so it felt like longer!), we'd seen a few little rows of lavender off the side of the road and we got to where we wanted to be. Almost. 

This place looked like the house on Ever After. Right?

We got to this little distillery, where we watched movie about how they process the lavender plants, and then they had this cute little store:

soap-on-a-rope!

We passed this little fellow too. Poor guy.

Down the hill a bit from the distillery, we walked over to this other little place where they were selling similar things.

Enter excellent customer service guy number 2: Jean-Claude. He owns a bunch of lavender fields and makes all these products out of it. We were a bit enchanted by his beautiful green eyes and cute accent, that we made a whole nother round of purchases.

 

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The huge thing of cherries that I bought from him. They were so delicious!

 

But we were glad we did. He gave us this beautiful bouquet of lavender, and then told us that instead of continuing up (yes, UP) the road on our bikes to see some other lavender fields, we ought to go back a ways the way we came and take this little path that would lead to his lavender fields. He promised that we'd get better pictures that way. And he was right!

I used Jacqueline's hair ribbon to secure the bouquet in her backpack. Quite ingenious, if I do say so myself.

So we followed Jean-Claude's directions to his lavender fields, and this is what we found:

It was just a bit overwhelming. Almost as if we were the only people in the whole world, all that lavender was just sitting there waiting for us to take it all in. I just couldn't help but feel an almost overwhelmingly strong outpouring of Heavenly Father's love for me. He has created just the most beautiful world, and I felt so, so blessed to be able to enjoy this little part of it. 

We had to just sit for a few minutes, taking it all in and enjoying our snacks.

 

You're never as happy as when you're jumping around in a field of lavender. Since we've been together for a few weeks, Jacqueline and I were happy to discover that we are each as narcissistic as the other. We stayed in that field for a good three hours, pretty much taking pictures until our cameras ran out of batteries.

Cute Jacqueline! I just love this one of her.

Can you even believe this? It was just so picture-perfect that we couldn't even believe that we were really there.

 

I'm really trying to cut back on the pictures here. We ended up with 565 pictures for the day, so obviously it was hard to just pick my favorites. A few things that the camera definitely can't show, though: 

1- the smell! Thanks to that bouquet of lavender, we have been enjoying that smell ever since we got home, but being there, it was like you were just breathing that smell. It's a part of the air there, and it's glorious.

2- the sound. I was not aware that it's bees who pollinate lavender plants, but I sure know that now! It's a little bit disconcerting being there and hearing nothing but buzzing. It was a bit scary, especially since we were walking everything through the rows, disrupting those bees left and right. Luckily none of them got annoyed with us!

See that little bee? So cute.

My little bike. Actually, it was a boy bike, so it was pretty hard to get used to. Not at all like my little beach cruiser!

One of the little walls was perfect for the self-timer!

Yes. We did bring other clothes to change into. We probably would have killed ourselves trying to ride those bikes in our skirts.

We finished off the day with a wonderful dinner in Apt. I love that in France, the first course can look like this:

Jacqueline with her goat cheese. I can't even think about goat cheese for how much it grosses me out.

Do I look like I'm about to fall over dead? Well, I felt like it!

That creme brulee was to die for! But the chocolate mousse was also very good.

A cute little painting inside the restaurant:

We made it home safe and sound. And we divided up our lavender bundle into these two cute pots we have in our apartment.

So. Moral of the story is, if you're ever in Provence (aka, the south of France), you must go see the lavender fields. They are so incredibly breathtaking. I just have to say, God definitely exists. And if you are ever in a place that wonderfully beautiful, there is no denying that! I am just praying that I will get another chance to go back and visit more lavender fields sometime in my life.