The village of SÉRIGNAN-DU-COMTAT, 8km northeast of Orange (three buses daily from Orange and Avignon), was the final home of Jean-Henri Fabre, a remarkable self-taught scientist, famous for his insect studies, who also composed poetry, wrote songs and painted his specimens with artistic brilliance as well as scientific accuracy. In the 1860s he had to resign from his teaching post at Avignon because parents and priests thought his lectures on the fertilization of flowering plants were licentious, if not downright pornographic. His house – on the N976 towards Orange – which he named the Harmas (Mon & Wed–Sat 9–11.30am & 2–5pm; €2.29; closed for renovation at the time of writing, so check with the Orange tourist office), contains a jungle-like garden, his study – with his complete classification of the herbs of France – and, on the ground floor, a selection from his extraordinary watercolour series of the fungi of the Vaucluse. At the crossroads in the centre of the town there's a statue of Fabre in front of the red-shuttered buildings of the church and mairie.Alternate spellings:: France, Sérignan-du-Comtat, Sérignan-du-Comtat, Serignan-du-Comtat
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