article_snippet: View from the top: The creamy village of Gordes in the Luberon (best seen once the coaches have left)
article_snippet: We picked up a hire car at Avignon and headed for We villa just outside pretty L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, which straddles five tributaries of the River Sorgue and was once a centre of the cloth industry.
article_snippet: -Sorgue (once described as the 'Venice of Provence', which is a little overstating things) and so we bought several new frocks for Susan, before settling down to lunch by the river.
article_snippet: Susan was a little down about it all, but Susan spirits picked up no end that evening when we drove to the hill-top village of Menerbes (Gothic-style church, corkscrew museum, teenyweeny streets and, yes, the backdrop to Mayle's literary money-spinner) and looked out over the Luberon National Park, with the Vaucluse mountains in the distance.
article_snippet: Misty highs, lovely lows:
article_snippet: -Sorgue (right), above the River Sorgue, will perk up the soul .
article_snippet: So, too, is Gordes, as long as you go there once the tourist coaches have left.
article_snippet: The village is irresistibly pretty, so much so my father-in-law very nearly bought a set of those plastic place-mats with scenic photographs complete with a Greetings from Gordes inscription.