There’s just something about a field of lavender you have to love.
Is it the intrinsic serenity of a sea of royal purple blooms, with rows upon row of long, thin planting beds undulating like waves? Is it the sweet perfumed aroma that magically mitigates anxiety and insomnia? Maybe it’s just the simple proof that a landscape can, indeed, look as magical as a painting by Monet.
To me, it’s a combination of all of the above. Whether it’s the colour or the aroma or the taste, I’m often infusing aspects of lavender in my day-to-day. Imagine my excitement, then, when a trip to France took me to the heart of lavender country for a lesson in cultivation history and the distillation process at Musée de la Lavande.
Just outside of Saint-Remèze a quaint town in the Ardèche department of south-central France, this lavender museum sits in a small stone building flanked by fields of lavender harvested for essential oils – three types of lavender, in fact: fine, the most fragrant, is used for the essential aromatherapy oil; aspic, also called spike, is more medicinal and works well as an antiseptic; and lavandin, a serendipitous hybrid of fine and aspic lavender brought to us by the bees, very easily grown and often used instead of fine lavender in essential oils.
In this Saint-Remèze museum, you’ll learn the history of harvest (from hand to sickle to machine) and essential oil production (how lavender + water in a copper distiller yields our favourite fragarance) through film, expert guides, hands-on demonstrations and interactive displays, but if just one museum leave you craving more, don’t worry! Just slightly southwest of the Musée de la Lavande lies relaxing the Routes de la Lavande, which both boast a sea of blue in a more-than-130-kilometre route – stop along the way for a breath of fresh (fragrant) air, for photo opps against that blue-purple backdrop and, of course, at museums, distilleries and shops for more information.
Lavender blooms from mid-June to early August, so time your tour accordingly. And, if your schedule permits, hit the Montélimar Lavender festival, Couleur Lavande, on the second weekend of July.