Grignan

It has a Renaissance castle and is mentioned in the letters that Madame de Sévigné wrote to her daughter, Madame de Grignan, in the 17th century. Grignan is located in the south of the Drôme department, near the border of the neighbouring Vaucluse department, and close to Mont Ventoux, the highest mountain in Provence. To visit Grignan, take the A7 autoroute and use either exit #18, Montélimar Sud, or #19, Bollène. The main crops produced in the area are lavender, truffles, wheat, and sunflowers. Nearby is the village of Nyons, world-famous for its olives. Several archeological excavations have shown that the rocky promontory of Grignan has been occupied since the Iron Age. There is evidence of a former Bronze Age society here, as well as Roman occupation in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. Historians have noted that in the year 1035, a cartulaire (a ledger of church or monastery property titles) from the Abbey of Saint-Chaffre in the Haute-Loire, makes mention of an obscure castellum Gradignanum.