I gathered from the books that Peter Malye lived somewhere between Bonnieux and Menebres, so they looked like good targets. From my research, they also represented some of the best “perched ” villages, ie houses “hanging” off a cliff face. I also wanted to find the chateau and other film locations of A GOOD YEAR – a proper gawping tourist.
An early start, to try and beat the temperature, forecast to be 32/35 Degrees C. So a drive to Lormarin and then through the “pass” to Bonnieux. Beautiful and quiet on an early Monday morning. Not much chat from me , just a few pictures below with comments.
I can see why people are attracted to live in this village. Tons of greenery and nice clean sweet air. Plenty of places to eat and drink and at least one of each type of small shop. Altogether very well self contained.
Then it was off to find the Chateau La Canorgue (just outside Bonnieux) where a lot of the filming was done. It’s a full time winery with tasting, etc – but not for a lone driver at 10 AM in the morning ! Another day, perhaps….
Apparently, the film’s producer Ridley Scott described all the places he did filming as “just eight minutes from my house”, so he presumably he knew the chateau owners.
So slowly along the road to Menebres, where the local council do a roaring trade in car park charges, to keep everyone off the very narrow streets – sensible really.
Here I made my first attempt at buying THE HAT, but my size was apparently out of stock. Getting hotter…….
The third “perched” village on my list was Gordes, more of a town really. But before I got there I made a fuel gathering diversion to en route Cavallion and raided the Auchan Supermarket for THE HAT – all 7.99 Euro’s worth….. Not exactly a high fashion garment, but becoming increasingly necessary, as the temperature rose … and rose.
Gordes is more “touristy” than the other smaller villages (better road access, I guess), with an enormous car park and plentiful mult-lingual coaches. Nevertheless, I liked Gordes, so I stayed for lunch and a good look round.
FYI, the young girl who photo-bombed my pic at the last moment is, according to her attendant father/manager, the UK under 16 roller blade solo champion. They were doing publicity shots for raising sponsorship, while on a family holiday. I kept bumping into them all over Gordes. At one stage, she was being filmed skating round the roundabout/main square in the gaps between all the traffic……See roundabout below.
This is the same roundabout that Russel Crowe circled around on a big motorbike in the film. Hope they stopped the traffic !!!! To continue my star-struck location spotting, below is the restaurant used as Fanny’s cafe, which the aforementioned Mr Crowe frequently visited in the film. I had lunch at the cafe in the bottom right hand corner of the first photo.
Here’s a few more pix taken on a random walk around. Beautiful….
After a long and hot day, I scuttled back to the shade of the campsite.