so I thought it best that we see some lavender whilst we are here. Unfortunately, it turns out that the lavender is all picked in August so we were a bit late to see these kinds of sights...
...so, we headed for the Musee de la Lavande (it would seem that the French have a museum for everything!).
Fine Lavender (which is different to the Hybrid Lavender which you may have in your garden at home) only grows on the dry mountains of Provence above 800 metres altitude. It is a small plant with only one flower on each stem. It reproduces itself by seeding (like a weed).
It has been used since the beginning of time for it's medicinal properties (it is pretty much the one stop shop for any ailment, you can use it for massage oil, for the bath, you can inhale it with steam to help with colds, and we all know it helps to give you a good nights sleep - the name lavender actually comes from the Latin 'to wash', as the Romans used to use it for bathing). It takes approximately, an incredible 130 kg of flowers to obtain (by distillation) 1 litre of essential oil!!!
So, I hope you have learned something about lavender when reading this, I know I learned a lot!
We bought a few things from the boutique (Naomi got some hand cream, I am sure that five year old girls don't really need hand cream but she was very excited about it) and our camper van now smells like a heavenly lavender field!
Love
Est xxx
Rich and I had a lovely day driving all over Provence going to lavender fields, well I had a nice day Rich might have different memories!
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