The gardens
A journey of the senses and a back in time offered to all...
Nestled in the heart of its pine massif,
the bastide town of Romégas and its gardens are home to many surprises...
A majestic Sainte Victoire, in the background, which slopes gently in the distance highlights a threshing floor, a boxwood parterre, a chapel, a labyrinth and a tèse, all embellished with basins, fountains, a laundry and many wells.
But the most curious thing has just been discovered: the basement is dotted with an underground network of water mines supplying crops and gardens since the second half of the 16th century.
These water mines date from the 16th century at the latest, perhaps from the Romans? !
Succumb to the charm of these sumptuous gardens…
If you arrive from the north, the first thing you see is a view of rounded laurustinus viburnums and superbly pruned mulberry bushes.
But looking south, your eye will be drawn by a striking group of tall, majestic pines.
Enter the gardens through a double avenue of cedars and Aleppo pines which leads to a rare 16th-century threshing floor in perfect condition.
Anduze vases containing pittosporums and hydrangeas surround the house, but opposite you, as you reach the terrace, is the breathtaking sight of the majestic Sainte-Victoire Mountain facing the house and its French-style box garden.
Below, to your right, is a viburnum maze, « The Fox’s Garden » and its aviary.
To your left, a few steps lead to the chapel and the tèse*…
* tèse : a place where women and children used to catch birds.
Continue to the avenue of oak trees … the lawn, the hollows of cistus and Mediterranean plants, persimmon, jujube and medlar trees … separate the gardens from fields of wheat with poppies and lead to a fountain.
As you follow the tèse towards the house you will pass the bird pond and reach the wash house in the bee garden.
To the east are avenues of mulberry and olive trees which lead nowhere… to the adjoining fields.
On the east side, let’s head towards the farm and the vegetable garden.
Leaving the vegetable garden, we head towards an alley of mulberry trees. We follow a piece of water fed by a water mine.
Going up to the farm and the dovecote near the alley of olive trees, we find animals roaming freely among us.