Where Provence's colors come from

Today, we traveled around the Luberon area above Aix en Provence. We saw two amazing villages, both nestled on hilltops and both from the middle ages: Gordes, with its stone structures, and Roussillon, with its ocre colors.

I really had an embarassment of choices for pictures today. As soon as I get around a reliable (and fast) connection, I'll upload some of the others.

This picture is from the one of the places where the reds, oranges and yellows were 'harvested' in open quarries. Usually open mining leaves desolation behind; here it produced some absolutely amazing sceneries with brilliant colors.

I pushed the levels a bit on the picture (no other fancy processing) as I took it against the sun and then noticed what that process did to the sun -- it reminded me a bit of the works of the painters who came to this area (yeah, I know, delusions of grandeur...) ;)