It was to be a holiday without sightseeing. That was the deal. I didn’t want to see anything. I didn’t want to open a guidebook. I didn’t want to do anything that involved a queue or an admission ticket. Activities were out — kayaking, bungee-jumping, horse-riding and, dear God, any kind of engagement with white water.

My needs were simple. I wanted to lounge beneath a shady tree reading a fat book, breaking off occasionally for naps, for cooling swims in the pool and for wine-fuelled meals at a long table of family and friends.

Having established what I thought was a pretty clear set of ground rules, we set off for Provence, because Provence was the original holiday before all the other stuff got in the way of serious R&R.

For Brits, Provence was the first abroad, the first encounter with bright sun, long lunches and locals who could shrug in four languages. People holidayed in Provence when pigs were still living on the ground floor of Tuscan farmhouses, when Andalusia was an outer darkness of highwaymen and fortified villages, when Greece was the preserve of archeologists and when the only music heard on Ibiza was the plaintive peal of the pastoral flute.

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Provence was what Brits dreamt about when they got stuck with the rain in Blackpool or a Bath chair in Bognor.

There are two options in Provence, the Riviera and the interior — Brigitte Bardot or Peter Mayle. I bow to no man in my admiration for sun-kissed beaches of topless bathers, but it was high summer and I wanted that old holiday thing, peace and quiet. I booked a house in Vaucluse, in the shadow of the enigmatic Mont Ventoux, and gathered family and friends. We were seven souls in all, ranging from 2 to 52.

Our house in Provence was picture-perfect (and, as it was a rental, I didn’t have to learn the French for U-bend). It had stone walls, green shutters, a sprawl of Virginia creeper, a kitchen that gave onto the garden, a full-size pool and a long table for meals en plein air. The nearest neighbours were half a mile away. The village was too far to walk. I was content. All the elements were in place. Cicadas droned, the vineyards slumbered, and so would I.

For the first few days, everything went smoothly, but as time passed, a plaintive mewl of discontent began to be heard among the younger troops. They wanted to go places, to see things, to do stuff. I tried to persuade them that the delights of Provence were all present right here — the view of vineyards, the glass of red wine catching the light, the hot, pine-scented sun — but they saw through that.

I developed a plan. I would nip this sightseeing lark in the bud. I would take them on an outing so serious, so grown-up, so boring, that they would plead with me to get back to the pool. We set off for Avignon.

THE POPES came to Avignon in the 14th century for much the same reason I did in the 21st: it was a dramatic gesture in the hope of silencing increasingly fractious critics at home. Pope Clement VI struck a deal with Jeanne, Queen of Naples, Countess of Provence and a busy serial killer. Jeanne sold Clement the city of Avignon while he absolved her of her sins, which included the murder of her first husband.

If I had hoped the Palais des Papes would bore my charges into submission, I was sadly mistaken. From the moment we stepped into the vaulted hall of the treasury, I knew I was doomed. It had a Lord of the Rings appeal. The 12-year-old peered down into the “safe holes” beneath the floors, where the popes hid their jewels, and whispered “Wicked”. The seven-year-old girl seemed to feel we had stepped into some romantic fairy castle.

She kept asking if the popes knew any princesses; I think she meant in the biblical sense. Meanwhile, the two-year-old belle ran wild across the vast stone floors of the papal audience halls, accosting strangers by tugging their trousers and asking if they had done a poo.

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