Provence in a Day: Lavender, Turquoise Canyons, and Hilltop Villages

You round a blind hairpin and the valley opens like a painted set: a ribbon of turquoise water threads between sheer limestone walls, and farther on the fields flare purple as if someone loosened a bolt of dyed cloth across the plateau. The driver eases the van onto a turnout at La Castellane; the air smells faintly of resin and sun-baked stone, but beneath it a sweeter note—lavender—rides on the breeze. For nine hours you will move through the pages of Provence: waterfalls, cliffside villages, panoramic gorges, and carpets of lavender interrupted only by roadside stalls selling honey and sachets stitched with the same purple that brightens the horizon.