TouchScreenTravels

Our Touch, your Travels…

This is a preview of the full content of our Provence’s Best app.

Please consider downloading this app to support small independent publishing and because:

All content is designed for mobile devices and works best there.
Detailed in-app maps will help you find sites using your device’s GPS.
The app works offline (one time upgrade required on Android versions).
All advertising (only present on Android versions) can be removed.

The app will also allow you to:

Add custom locations to the app map (your hotel…).
Create your own list of favourites as you browse.
Search the entire contents using a fast and simple text-search tool.
Make one-click phone calls (on phones).

Petrarch

The poet who loved Fontaine de Vaucluse

The great Florentine poet Francesco Petrarch (1304 – 1374) came to the Comtat Venaissin in the early 14th Century to avoid the political strife endemic in Italy during that period. The Comtat is featured in my Provence’s Best App

He travelled to the great city of Avignon, as many intellectuals did, and attended the Papal Court where he soon established his reputation as a poet. It was here in Avignon that he met the beautiful Laura de Noves with whom he fell in love. As a married lady Laura was unobtainable and Petrarch wrote about her in true troubador style while their relationship remained platonic.

The River Sorgue at Fontaine de Vaucluse

He retired to Fontaine de Vaucluse at the age of 33 where he spent much time beside the spectacular Fontaine itself and the River Sorgue during which he wrote his masterpiece the Canzonière consisting of 336 sonnets all dedicated to Laura.

Laura died from the plague in 1348 and while Petrarch stayed in Fontaine for a while he eventually returned to Italy to live near Padua where he died in 1374

The Luberon In-A-Day (or 2!)

Mountains, pretty villages & a Roman bridge