A secret corner of Provence

I've spent ten years returning to the same spot in Provence. Here's the secret address book I've built up over that decade.

I have been visiting Provence for over half my life. I have partied in Cannes, eaten my way through Nice (a thoroughly underrated ‘eating’ city by the way), done numerous health retreats in the hills around St Tropez and had the best wine of my life in the vineyards around Valence. But there is one special corner that my husband and I return to year after year.

It’s a place of lavender fields, emerald green vineyards, villages that perch high on cliff edges and some of the best local restaurants around. 

As we travelled down there this summer, a waiter at a very smart restaurant asked my husband and I where we were heading. 

‘Provence,’ I told him. 

He pressed me further. ‘Provence is a big place,’ he said laughing. So I told him where.

‘Aha,’ he said, refusing to put down the two soufflés he had in either hand until he had made his point. ‘That is not really Provence,’ he said looking wistfully at the sky. ‘That is even better than Provence.’ And then he turned on his heels.

He was right.

And so if you are ever headed that way I want to share with you over a decade’s worth of recommendations that I rarely give out to anyone. These are the places I return to again and again. And maybe one day you will too.