The Sorgue rises cold and clear a few kilometres upstream and splits into channels that run right through L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue — under the houses, around the squares, turning the old water wheels green with moss. The town sits on its own little islands, and the water is everywhere you look.
I. The town on the water
Once the channels drove the wheels of tanners, dyers and silk-throwers; a dozen roues à aubes still turn, slow and dripping, along the streets. Walk the ring of the old town, cross and re-cross the green water, and watch the trout hold steady against a current cold enough to keep them there all summer.
“A town that floats on its own river, and never quite dries off.”
II. The antiques capital
L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is, after Paris, the great antiques town of France — permanent villages of dealers around the station, and on Sundays a sprawling market of brocante and fine pieces along the water. Twice a year, at Easter and in August, the dealers hold a great fair that fills the whole town. Come Sunday morning for the full theatre of it.
III. The source upstream
Follow the Sorgue five kilometres up to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, where the whole river comes out of the ground at once — a deep green pool at the foot of a cliff, the most powerful spring in France and one of the deepest in the world. The poet Petrarch lived beside it; the water has never been fully sounded.
