I found Les Baux-de-Provence on a rainy November afternoon when I had absolutely no business being there. The mist was doing its thing, my hair was doing its other thing, and I was completely, irreversibly hooked.

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Most people give it two hours on their way to somewhere else. A quick walk, a few photos, back on the bus. I've never understood this. Les Baux is a medieval hilltop village that rewards the people who actually slow down... the stone courtyards, the staircases that go nowhere useful, the streets that feel like they're keeping secrets. You don't rush it. You let it find you.

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So that's what we're doing. Seven days. No bus. No rushing. We'll wander the village at the pace it deserves, eat long lunches at places I've already researched to an unreasonable degree, and drive out to the parts of Provence that don't make it onto the highlight reels:  the olive groves, the villages that don't have gift shops yet, the landscapes that make you pull over and just stand there for a minute.

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By the end of the week, Provence won't feel like a place you visited. It'll feel like somewhere you actually were. There's a difference. You'll know it when you feel it.