When Peter Mayle wrote the 1989 best seller A Year In Provence, it was set in the area we were riding today. Called The Luberon, it consists of three mountain ranges – Le Petit Luberon, Le Grand Luberon, Le Luberon Oriental, (I’ll let you translate those!) and the valley surrounding them. A Year in Provence tells the story of Mayle and his wife renovating a two-hundred-year-old farm house outside Ménerbes, which is one of the Luberon towns we visited today. It opened the eyes of many English-speaking people to the joys of life in Provence.

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