🇫🇷 France🌅 On the road🚐 Van life

FR26.6 L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue

4 June 2026By Stefan

← Back to all storiesReading time ~4 minutes

Once again, we turned to Park4Night to find our next home and this time we really picked a good one.

Kathrin found a vineyard called Domaine La Camarette that allows campers to stay for free under beautiful trees, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a super friendly owner and a tiny kitten that couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. Apparently, it had dared to leave the safety of the shop for the very first time while we were browsing the wine selection.

The owner told us a little about the history of the vineyard and explained that wine has been made here for nine generations.

With a smile — though we were never quite sure whether she was joking or not — she said:

“Our parents didn’t have any boys, so we had to take over.”

Either way, they are clearly doing a fantastic job. Besides wine, they also grow olives (yummy!) and various types of lentils, which they sell whole, as flour and in just about every form in between.

We ended up buying a bottle of rosé and some olive oil.

As a parting recommendation, she strongly suggested we visit the market in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue the following day. It was already on our list, but it’s always reassuring when a local confirms that something is worth the trip.

A lovely walk and a relaxing evening completed the day and we turned in for what turned out to be a fantastic night’s sleep.

The next morning we hopped on our bikes and rode to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, about 14 kilometres away or roughly 40 minutes by bike.

As Germans, we were positively shocked to discover that absolutely everyone greeted us as we passed. Walkers, joggers, cyclists — even the birds seemed to chirp “Bonjour!” as we rode by 🐦

It genuinely made our day.

The village — or rather the historic centre — is surrounded by canals and old waterways. Several historic watermills and water wheels are still visible and give the place a unique character.

Of course, there are also the familiar narrow alleyways and charming little squares that suddenly open up to reveal a large church or another impressive historic building.

We had expected a nice little market.

What we found instead was an entire village transformed into one giant market.

And we were completely unprepared for it.

The atmosphere was incredible. Every corner seemed to reveal something new — a beautiful building, a cosy café, a crêperie, another water wheel or yet another tempting market stall.

At some point, antique dealers apparently got together and decided that this village should become the antique capital of France.

There seemed to be one antique shop on every corner.

It was extremely tempting.

Luckily, we still don’t have enough space in Wilma to bring home random treasures, which probably saved us from bankruptcy.

The market itself had everything imaginable: antiques, typical flea market finds, local produce, fresh fruit and vegetables, bread and croissants, jewellery, cheese, meat, clothing, street food, more cheese, even more cheese and… did we mention the cheese already?

We wandered through the streets until the vendors slowly started packing away their stalls.