We arrived in mid-March to swelling fruit tree buds and a frenzy of cleanup and pruning activities in the vineyards. Over the course of our 3 week stay, the fruit orchards fully blossomed, the asparagus emerged, precocious trees leaved out, and many cultivated fields showed that new-green of early growth.
We enjoyed sunny, 70 degree lunches on our terrace most days. And when we at last unpacked the microwave, we began enjoying delightful picnic dinners on the terrace at sunset. We treated ourselves to local wines, salads, delicious pizza and quiches from the neighborhood epicerie and pâtisseries.
And during those final days, the wisteria exploded throughout the village, leaves emerged on many plane trees and grape vines, and neighbor Andrée’s garden came into its own on our Impasse des Fleurs!
Since returning, I have also put together two sweeping panoramas of Mirabel and its valley as seen from neighboring Piégon:
Piégon Pano #1 (click to view)
Piégon Pano #2 (click to view)
In the first panorama, Mt. Ventoux is the snow covered mountain on the left; in the second, the lovely little chapel is Piégon’s Notre-Dame de Cadenet, and in both, Mirabel is the village with the steeple on the right (only 2 miles away). Still photos of this area were shown in an earlier post’s slideshow (slideshow is toward bottom of that post)
We have now sampled November and March/April … can’t wait to visit at other times of the year!
– Rick