Soyans Like You Mean It

This year we took another short vacation with the sin-laws to go to Soyans, France. Oh, you haven’t heard of Soyans? Or you don’t know how to pronounce it? (Or, like me, both?)

Well, Soyans is located in the southern region of France, in the Rhone-Alpes region. It is roughly a 9 hour drive away from Antwerp, Belgium and since I can’t drive a stick-shift car, I was able to rest during most of the ride. Boy, the time really flew by!

We arrived at around 8:30 in the morning, and around a week later than the rest of the family.

Even though our rental home was beautifully situated near windy mountains and valleys, this summer’s heat wave paid an enormous toll! Most of the time was spent at the pool or in front of a fan, desperately trying to cool down. But, the heat did inspire us to go on an air-conditioned car ride to the Provence area (about a two hour drive away) to see if there were any lavender fields left. Spoiler: not so many. But the countryside was still beautiful and well worth the trip.

Sites around the Provence area of France

Me posing in a lavender field… next step is teaching Jeroen how to focus a camera, haha

Windy roads and lavender fields

One of the only lavender fields that hadn’t been harvested yet

Since we were also located close to the Rhone river, we thought it may be fun to go kayaking. I had never gone kayaking downstream before, and it seemed like a fun challenge that actually wouldn’t be too challenging.

Well, I was right and I was wrong. For the most part, the ride was relaxing with a few exciting drops. The challenging part, however, was that the water was so low! Because of this, our kayak got stuck often. And that started to ruin the fun. But, this little adventure made me want to start kayaking more often, and there’s a great area in the Ardennes (Belgium) to do so! Maybe next year you’ll see many more kayaking adventures. 🙂

The whole kayak crew 🙂

Kayaking in the Rhone River in France

Jeroen and me in our kayak

Kayaking in the Rhone River in France

Two other places worth checking out near Soyans are Le-Poet Laval and the small village of Crest. Plus, there were many sunflower fields in the area, which provided plenty of great photo opportunities! Since the area was also rather secluded, I had the chance to take up the drone, which I was super excited about. Then, super nervous about as I thought of the potential of crashing it into the mountains.