In 2001, when we went back to spend another two weeks in Provence, we returned to Lauris to see if these doors, windows, and shutters had changed. They hadn't.
All of these are pictures that I took in September 2001 with a Kodak digital camera.
One strange thing: Lauris is not mentioned at all the Michelin green guide for Provence that I have, the 1987 edition.
Yes, the first photo is the kind of the one I remembered. The only thing Wikipedia has to say about Lauris is that its population doubled between 1982 and 2006 and nothing else! That kind of information is of no interest to tourists! This explains that!
ReplyDeleteThe tax on doors and windows (whether painted or not) created in 1798 was discontinued in 1926 (probably for hygiene reasons!). The same kind of tax existed in the UK and in Spain. I don’t know if they’re still in force. What about the US?
DeleteNo tax on windows or doors in the US. It's mostly value based tax assessments.
DeleteYesterday I was looking at Zillow. I wanted to see what a California friend's house might be worth these days. I noticed that the house was assessed at around 600,000 $ for 10 or 12 years in the early years of the century. Then suddenly 7 or 8 years ago the tax assessment value jumped to 2 million. Now the house is worth 3.5 million, Zillow said. The property taxes are nearly $3,000 per month! Our friend passed away in 2016.
DeleteThat's a clever use of that small garage for sitting and plants. Lauris is lovely.
ReplyDeleteEvelyn
I love the colorful shutters :)
ReplyDeleteJudy
The shutters actually fit the windows. So often in the States I see homes where the shutters are purely decorative and could never cove the windows if closed. Ha!
ReplyDeleteIf you were asked, Ken, to write up a tourist's guide for Lauris, what would you write?
ReplyDeleteI would decline that request, Mary. I don't have enough information or a good enough memory to be sure what I saw in Lauris compared to what I saw in other villages. This was all 22 years ago. My pictures are labeled by village name so I do know the pictures in this post were taken at Lauris.
DeleteTry this link to the tourist office in Lauris.
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