The Heart of Provence

This is the last day we have in Provence, so we set out to lose ourselves in the heart of it. We map a route that will take us to three little villages, three of 150 designated most beautiful villages in France, according to our little map. (We are using a map supplied by the Tourist Information Office, a Michelin map of France, the Michelin Guide for Provence and sometimes the Lonely Planet Provence guide book.)

We are pretty fond of roundabouts as we drive here and there. They are very forgiving of mistakes; you can zoom around and around until you figure out which exit to take. I wish life were like that. Make a bad job choice? Just go in a big circle until you find a good exit. No dead ends. Just flow without stopping.

The day is soggy. Provence is not as cold as yesterday, but it is draped in mist. There is not much traffic.  We are looking for Menerbes, and the roads gradually become narrower and prettier until we are essentially in another world of leafy aromatic forests that shade the road and reveal pretty scenes at every turn. I have a feeling of being enveloped by time itself as if drawn to the center of it, unable to resist.  

Menerbes is the area in the Petite Luberon area east of Cavaillon and St. Remy where Peter Mayle, the author of “A Year In Provence” lived. It has been home to significant artists and writers  and seems blessed with every aspect of attractive life that human beings are capable of imagining. 

As is true with nearly every old village dating back to medieval times and beyond, there is a vertical cliff topped by a church with a bell tower and steeple. The streets curve up and down, around corners and divide into narrow cobbled alleys. Stores are fitted into the old buildings. We find a nearly hidden stone stairway that winds up and around to the top of the hill where a 15th century church stands ready to take in all sinners and heal them.

We can see the Luberon valleys on both sides of the hill, spread like a quilt  made of vineyards, olive groves and  windbreaks made up of tall closely planted chestnut trees and mulberries. Mist hangs like soft veils at the flanks of the hills in the distance. The air is still. I can smell rosemary, roses, jasmine and other herbs on the cool morning air. I am smitten with this place. It is perfect.  

We keep heaving sighs and our pace is slow; photography and a deep need to absorb the essence of where we are require that we not rush. Eventually, we do leave, but it is with a lot of reluctance. 

The next village is Lourmarin, a distance from Menerbes of about 15 k. The drive is winding, crazy and beautiful. The side of the road has a low stone wall to guard it, and it’s broken in some spots. Evidence of someone flying off the curves in speeding cars? 

There are a few indecipherable signs we've seen. For instance, one sign is simply an exclamation point with no words on it.  When you arrive in a village or town, you see the town name, as you would expect. When you leave, you see the town name again, but it has a red hash mark through it, as if it has been deleted. Speed bumps meant to slow traffic are sometimes nothing but a six-inch-high pad of hard rubber stretched across our lane.  Mysteries abound.  We must be detectives as we drive in this French-speaking country, relating our past experience to what is likely to be expected here. 

In Lourmarin, we notice an extensive repaving project is underway that uses attractive modern bricks of different colors being laid as street surface. A workman in a tall building right at the entrance area is blaring loud Euro pop, incongruous with the 800 year-old village structures and setting. 

It’s past midday, and our bellies are talking to us, so we look around in the main village streets for a place to eat. The restaurant we choose is trendy, busy and costs 14 euro for a delicious and unusually tender steak, warm potatoes creamed with cheese, butter and herbs and an arugula salad lightly dressed. Again, I nearly lick my plate. The ever-present baguette slices are given on the side. No butter. Who needs it after all that? 

The place is packed and abuzz with conversation, but, as usual, it is impossible to hear anyone’s words. We are flanked, bistro style, on both sides by tables of French people and cannot hear what they are saying. This is something I have noticed among the French in restaurants. They contain themselves and their words. They really have mastered the art of having “quiet indoor voices.” Of course, I am not able to understand fluent French very well, but still...

Lourmarin is a sterling little village in which streets are lined with artistic and creative boutiques of all sorts. There are three bell towers, and there is a 15th century chateau we tour. It has four floors with a winding stone staircase between each floor. It was found in ruins in 1920 by a wealthy businessman who restored it and then died five years later. His will stipulated that young people be educated in music and art there. We hear musicians practicing for a performance coming up in a week, a pleasing backdrop of sound as we look at furniture and fixtures in the building that date back about 200 years. 

More sighing, gazing at leafy loveliness, picturesque windows and doors, tall crooked walls, laughing that even waste containers seem charming. We are dazzled and silly with the charm of these places.

And yet, we must move on. More driving in leafy green countryside and then we arrive at Ansouis where we pass up another tour of the chateau there and simply walk around the town. “Around” means up and down, mostly up, until we find the church topping the village, built 800 years ago. Its stone paving inside is curving and worn, the interior silent but still echoing with the songs and prayers of humanity. I feel as though I am one little being in a long chain through time out of mind. It is a place thick with old spirits and unknown events and tragedies as well as joys.  

After a winding drive home along the Durance River through the Petite Luberon area, we return to our little hotel, Canto Cigalo. The rain abated a few hours ago. The world seems refreshed and lush. After 7 pm, we make the quick drive into town and find two seats at La Cantina, an Italian pizza bistro on the main street. It is jumping with business already. I have a very delectable and satisfying gnocchi dressed in a cream sauce with herbs. Panna cotta is light as air with its raspberry sauce drizzled on top. 

We walk into the old heart of San Remy after dinner and I find my favorite scene: A plaza that fronts the Musee des Alpilles. It is a marble-paved square with trees  planted to shade it, and there are lights from a cafe shining on its surface.  It is quiet and beautiful. I am standing on a street that is a mosaic of broken pieces of white stone and there is a narrow gutter that flows with water down its center, curving away around two or three corners until it disappears from view under archways and beyond doors leading to places I will never see.  It is mysterious, familiar and foreign and brings up an ache in my heart; I am in love with it.  It is so simple a place and yet says everything about Provence and France to me. I hate to leave it and look at it hard so I will never forget it. This is what I will bring home, what I will know about this little square:  It is simply itself, unpretentious but still touched with whimsy. It looks timeless, as if it will become sepia toned as I look at it. It only needs music to be perfect, but that is what I can add; music will play when I recall it years from now.  

Glanum, Baux and Eagle Ears in Provence

It's Monday morning, and we are eating outside on the gravel-covered terrasse under the spreading mulberry trees. It is quiet, peaceful and larks are fluting in the trees.  Eventually, we brush off our croissant crumbs (creating a little snow storm of crust bits because the pastries are so crisp and flaky), and drive away to Glanum, which you've never heard of. I hadn't either.

The Romans, as they expanded outward from Rome sometime before Jesus worked his miracles, came to this area and appropriated small settlements of the Gauls and built temples, aqueducts, baths, public plazas and roadways. They were a busy lot and impressed everyone for many kilometers in every direction. Then eventually they "fell" and left behind a lot of interesting artifacts.

Here in the area of what is now Southern France, the Romans appropriated a lot of little villages and towns.  One such area was a settlement called Glanum. Archeologists discovered the area in 1927 (give or take a few years), well after Vincent Van Gogh strolled around here painting pictures. It is said he never knew the site existed.

These are things we learn by touring the archeological ruins. The interpretive signs in English and French show terrifically detailed views of what is there now and how it would have looked in various time periods for more than two millenia. What they have been able to discern by seeing vague scratches and indentations on large blocks of limestone is nearly miraculous.

Some restoration of part of a temple has been done and much study made of the underground water system including lead pipes and canals beneath the ground that not only transported fresh water to public places but to homes as well. There were latrines, warm, cold and hot baths, swimming pools, springs, wells, fountains and sewer lines.

The most revelatory items I see in the little museum on site is a display of very tiny utensils made of iron. A delicate perfume box only an inch long and tapered in the shape of a fish was exquisite in its fine detail, a great contrast to all the huge stone building blocks the site was made up of. Artifacts date back about 300 years BC.

Satisfied with our tour at Glanum, we head south over a range of stubby mountains called Les Alpilles. The road winds and twists through a forested area and then reveals an escarpment in the distance that sports the ruins of a castle.  Of course it does, it's France. Castles and craggy ruins crop up everywhere here. The one we are looking at is called Baux, another one of the 150 Most Beautiful French Towns.

This upswept ridge of limestone was a strategic place to integrate a castle right into the cliff face.  It was sacked eventually and fell into ruin for a while. It is now a showplace for medieval weaponry and lots of fun for giggling schoolkids who dress in costumes for their day at the castle with classmates.  As is true for these hilltop wonders, we are made to park down below (for 4 Euro) and walk up steep old stairways to the upper plateau where the town begins.  I imagine the original people who built the place strong and nimble as mountain goats, obviously capable of immense work.

As soon as we reach a cafe, we head in and have a salad and bread with a lot of chugging of water after having become intensely thirsty. I am getting very slowly better at asking for water, but the waiters usually look some version of exasperated, puzzled or fearful of being infected by me when I attempt to ask for a simple pitcher of water instead of bottled water. I am determined to improve my French as it is an important language, especially since I will die of thirst if I don't.

It's a hot day with clouds looming over the distant castle crags.  We manage to top off finally and then leave to tour the ramparts. No sooner are we out on the upper plain of the hilltop than I manage to slam my left foot into a jutting rock in the ground and basically say "ouch" and wonder if I still have my foot connected to my ankle bone.  Yeah, that was painful all right.  I need to scream, but I'm in France and I cannot scream in French yet, so I hold my comments for later.

I am distracted by a demonstration of a trebuchet anyway, so I get going to watch.  A trebuchet is the coolest mechanical weapon ever invented because it seems so much more like a big toy than a thing with which to whack enemies.  It is basically a huge windup slingshot with a counterweight that causes a long arm to fling a load of something way high up into the air and far away from the trebuchet itself.  The demonstration throws a massive water balloon something like 300 yards away where it explodes with a massive splat that sets the crowd of kids cheering wildly.

The kids get to learn how to play tether ball with a large leather hackey sack thing on a rope, duel with cardboard swords, see other large weapons set loose on the enemy and tour the lower parts of the old castle ruins.  We take a self-guided tour of the area and try to imagine the way it looked in its hey day.

A bit of shopping follows in the little town itself, but we buy nothing. The idea is that there is a market on Wednesday in San Remy that will offer better prices, so we hold off.  With plenty of daylight left, we pile back into our oven-like black Peugeot and take a different road down the hill. The radio plays Euro pop and French talk radio.  We zoom along a winding road through a pretty forest heading north and find ourselves lost again. But lost is good; you never know what will happen next and it's usually interesting. We get to see more of unscripted, open countryside blanketed with leafy trees, grassy meadows, wheat fields, vineyards, olive groves and tractors pulling out into onrushing traffic.

Not happy about being potentially too lost, we argue briefly about how to proceed, decide on a plan. We choose Eygalieres (I decide to corrupt the word horribly and call it Eagle Ears) as our next destination as it is listed in our guidebook as a town of "character." Character = rustic, charming and real.  Its oldest area was built probably 500 years ago or more and occupies the highest promontory, the most defensible space for miles. As towns have grown, they have spread out from their upper tips to the flanking plains below. It's a sweet place to wander and I love it. I want to take it home with me.

Satisfied with the day but with my toe turning purple, I vote for going back to our pleasant hotel, Canto Cigalo, for dinner. My toe's okay, just discolored and kind of puffed up a bit, but it still fits in my shoes, so I can dress for dinner, which I do. The dinner is a cold but delicious salad made of hard boiled egg, slices of cantaloupe, lettuce, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, crisps of toast with rounds of brie on them and the ever-present French bread. I've survived in fine style,  as evidenced by my vivid toe, and I am ready to think of tomorrow.

Tomorrow, two UNESCO world heritage sites are on the list.