PARIS – The sweet smell of lavender is tinged with bitterness this year in the south of France, as farmers who harvest the flower protest European regulations linking the plant to chemical toxins.

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover travel, specializing in adventure and the great outdoors. Rows of purple, fragrant flowers are a treat to see and smell.

The scent and the colors are upon us: periwinkle-purple lavender, with its distinctive sweet smell, waving dreamlike in the wind on a hot day and returning us to the Tuscany and Provence of our dreams ...