France

Cut. Your hotel woman is being kind about it. Valensole usually goes in the third week of July and this year was earlier than that, so nearer five weeks than three. What is left is stubble and the smell. Do the gorge without the plateau. Ask for Point Sublime at Rougon, then down to the beach at Pont du Galetas where the gorge opens into the lake. You are back in Nice by seven instead of half nine. Same price, less road. The D952 is hairpins for the best part of two hours each way and somewhere in the fourth hour of it you stop looking out of the window.

I would not write the plateau off completely. Crossing it at eight in the morning is low sun over a lot of empty ground and that is worth something with nothing growing on it. The fields themselves photograph badly cut, Sofia is right there. For the lake, the water only reads that pale green when the sun is properly on it, so you want it up but not overhead. Half nine to about eleven at the Galetas end. After midday the south wall throws hard shade across everything and the top half of the frame goes white. I lost most of a morning to that and came back with nothing.

No help on the lavender, sorry. But the driver question is one I have wanted answered for ages. Somebody asked it in a Florence thread back in June and I never saw a straight answer. Do you tip on top for the waiting hours or is that inside the 450 already? I always feel terrible about a man sitting in a car park for four hours while I walk round a lake.