We set out early last Saturday for a beautiful village in the heart of Provence Verte (green Provence), Barjols.  Besides having a very well-organized tourist office, we were immediately taken with Barjols’ pretty squares and, the star attraction, its bubbling fountains.

There is a downloadable walking tour of the fountain route available on the Provence Verte website (in French) but you can also pick-up a guided-tour booklet in English at the tourist office.

Barjols is advertised as the “Tivoli” of Provence, which I find incredibly endearing given its about one fifth the size of the Tivoli fountains outside of Rome – but, in my opinion, no less beautiful.

Given we had fantastic weather on this day, we were quite content to do what we enjoy doing most in these small villages: strolling around.

After finishing the “fountain route” we stopped for a drink at Place Victor Hugo, directly in front of the (hand-carved) memorial fountain for fallen soldiers of WWI.   I was also quite taken with Le Sporting –not a bad place to spend a lazy weekend afternoon if you ask me.

Our final stop took us to a restaurant situated on the Place de la Marie – yet another gorgeous spot with an odd-looking creation appropriately dubbed, the mushroom fountain.  We proceeded to have lunch at Le Resto, a recommendation from the French guidebook Petit Fute. The owner took time-out to chat with us about our meal (we had a question about the spices in our fish “a la plancha“) and he also snuck-in a bit of local gossip. Turns out Brad & Angie’s (as I like to call them, seeing as we’re almost neighbors) “place” is just outside of Barjols.

I’m not proud, but we did indeed do a “drive-by” of Chateau “Brangelina” –  if you can call peering past a guardhouse to a long, winding road…which disappeared behind a large mountain…a drive-by.  I won’t lie, we were both silly-excited anyway.

Learn More About Barjols:

Barjols’ on the Map: Google maps

Provence Verte (English site for tourists): http://www.la-provence-verte.net/uk/

Le Resto Restaurant: http://www.lerestodespetitsboudin.fr/

Place de la Marie

83670 Barjols

Tel: 04 94 77 29 87