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.  

St. Remy de Provence: Marche', Musee, Monastere

The sun has left Provence. The air is chilled by a chugging cold wind. We don't know what to think and ask the monsieur at the desk of our hotel what to expect. He shrugs, sends his lower lip out and raises his eyebrows - all this indicates, "Who knows," but in a way that also indicates we are all in the dark and will just have to wait and see.

After our petite dejeuner including delectable grapefruit and ginger preserves to spread on our bread, we regroup in our room, make a plan for the first part of the day and emerge into a blast of cold air from the front salon of the hotel. It sure looks like rain. But, I feel optimistic after my breakfast, and I want to see our little town, St. Remy. 

The plan is to enjoy market day in St. Remy. Similar to the market in Isle sur la Sorgue on Saturday, this market occupies many winding streets in the heart of old town. Scarves are selling well; it's really cold when the wind gusts hard. 

We buy cherries, apricots, bread, candied peanuts and some gifts. Vendors look chilled, and they are gritting their teeth, hoping for brisk business to take their minds off their discomfort. A few are ready to bolt for the warm interiors of bistros or wherever home is. We duck into a cafe and warm up with an espresso. Back to the market for one more look.

The stalls are a riot of color, hands reaching back and forth across piles of olives or heaps of fruit. In the market streets, the crowd is dense, alert for deals, restless in its quest for goods and good prices. The young man selling candied peanuts speaks with me in halting English, asking me where I am from. His mother smiles but looks embarrassed for not speaking much English herself. 

"Thirty years, New York. I was," she waves her hand over her shoulder. "Good," she also says. "He is pretty good English, very good English." She is trying, and I am trying to speak French. We agree that the weather is misbehaving badly, uncharacteristically, and we wish each other bonne journee. Then I am on my way. 

The rain has begun, but now we are in our car again driving to the Monastere St-Paul du Mausole, an ancient monastery where Vincent Van Gogh stayed for a year after cutting his ear off. While he was at the monastery, which was built in order to treat the mentally ill beginning in the 1500s, he was able to regain a sense of stability, optimism and even excitement about his work. Sadly, after living for a year at the asylum, he was discharged and committed suicide two months later.  

We drive down a pretty lane bordered by a stone wall alongside which stand reproductions of Van Gogh masterpieces. He was at his peak of skill and productivity while living at the asylum, influenced by its remarkable calm and serene setting. We look at the inner gardens from his window just as he would have seen them.  It's really remarkable.  The colors of his paintings are exactly what you see in San Remy and the surrounding area. He was always taken with what most people call ordinary objects, captivated by the detail of form and color, and he painted them in a way that has changed everyone's appreciation of them ever since then. 

The monastery still treats the mentally ill; the gift shop sells their art. The place is peaceful; we are both struck by. It is one of the most remarkable places I've ever been before. 

We return to our hotel, which is very close by, to eat our fruit and to make a new plan. This is San Remy Day for us, and we want to explore close to home. After our break, we go to the Musee des Alpilles (Alpilles is the name of the rocky short mountain range south of town), housed in a 16th century stone house in the center of the oldest part of San Remy.

The museum has a collection of farming tools, goods and images from the town's early days when the population was almost all agricultural. Displays tell us about bee keeping, wool gathering, seed production, cicadas (a favorite local bug that lives for years underground, coming out into the open long enough to make its buzzing song, mate and lay eggs before dying), and a photography exhibit of local town scenes from the late 1800s to early 1900s.

We walk around and window shop, finger a few cute things, debate buying or not, stroll on. We work up an appetite again, but it's too early.  In the States, we eat at 6 PM or so, usually earlier if we can.  In France, you get no attention whatsoever until after 7 PM. No such thing as Happy Hour here unless you are at a bar. Places open for service at 7 PM and most diners begin to show up at 8 PM and later.

We are ready to eat tonight at our usual hour and have to kill some time. What we really want is to go put our feet up, be slobs and eat pizza while watching TV. You know, be American. There is a magazine and curio shop across from the restaurant area. The racks are long and filled with maybe 500 kinds of magazines. I pick one up on bullfighting and look at it. Every bullfighter is striking the same pose: A graceful arch of the back, a lowered cape, and a bull rushing past with its horns lowered. Apparently bullfighting is popular in southern France, but we have not seen a ring anywhere. I wouldn't go watch, but since it's part of the local culture, I'm curious to know about it.  It's gruesome and cruel though, so I put the magazine away.

I choose some postcards, look at them for awhile, and then put them all back. Dinner is too close, and I'm too hungry to make any decent decisions.  I have found no post offices open, by the way. Even with posted hours on the doors, they are closed for some mysterious reason. Strike? Who knows.

We locate a darling pizza place on a dead end street (10 foot wide street) and finally get to eat.  It's good and we are happy at last.  Then, home and sleep.  Tomorrow will be our last day in Provence.

Into the Heart of Provence I Go

It's time to pack up and leave Paris. At last I'm going to Provence, something I've waited to do for years. It's the mediterranean allure that attracts so many, a sensual, historically rich region that is really calling me. I'm excited not only about the travel ahead but that I've gone through a week (only a week) of living in Paris and getting a glimmer of an idea of what this city life might be like for a longer time. There is something about Paris that feels innately feminine, sophisticated and patient. Yet it has energy and verve.  A lot of what appeals about Paris is simply that it's European. The time frame of the day is different, and because of that your spirit has more room to breathe.

But, I do have a couple of hours before the train leaves Gare du Lyon at 1:15 PM, so my husband, who has just returned from Chartres after completing his own retreat, and I walk over to a cafe where the snappy waiter in black and white formal and traditional attire, seats us, takes our order, trying to sell us the big breakfast. I decline him and off he sprints for my coffee and croissant. My husband tucks into an omelette and we drift away into conversation and watch Paris from our cafe window.

Afterwards, we have enough time for a walk and angle over to Notre Dame past the dashing and beautiful fountain depicting Saint Michael and past St. Severin church and some very classic cafes nearby. Then the Seine is flowing past us and we see Notre Dame and its hordes of tourists again. It is so tremendous a structure with its glaring gargoyles and grotesque buttresses, spiny peaks and steeples that I am both fascinated and revolted by it. It does not inspire my faith to be stronger, what faith I have at this point, but it does instill fear and awe, not emotions I believe relate to heaven or aspiration to goodness and piety. I think it might be closer to morbid curiosity actually, reinforcing the belief that wickedness thrives in the world.

One way or another, we find ourselves shopping along the main narrow street on Ile St. Louis, the smaller and most elegant of the two islands in the middle of the Seine. This is an old world place, where shops are very tiny and very specialized, every one of them fine purveyors of ultra gourmet foods. A fromagerie, a patisserie or two or three, a boulangerie, a marionette store, an olive oil store, a charcuterie where chickens are sold with their long legs and feet sticking up into the air like weird dancers. It is possible to go to a different store for every ingredient of your meal along this street.

Then, with time growing short, we walk rapidly back to the Boulevard St. Germain, take the metro a half mile to our hotel's neighborhood, grab our bags, hail a taxi at the taxi stand back on the boulevard and wave good-bye to the busy urbane place that feels so foreign and so familiar all at once.

At Gare du Lyon, which is a wonderful place to watch masses of travelers as they await their trains, we eat a salad and some bread and then board the TGV, the ultra-fast super train that will take us to Avignon, a distance of 450 miles in less than three hours. Other passengers settle in and then unwrap their baguette sandwiches and drinks while the train, whisper quiet and smooth, begins to move.

After a few kilometers while we clear the outer bounds of Paris, the train accelerates up to a speed that is deceptive in its silkiness. I cannot guess the speed, but the train is capable of going 200 mph, so it must reach 150 at times. Every once in a while a train from the opposite direction causes a sensation of compressed air as it goes by with a sound like phooomph! Very cool. To my knowledge, we have nothing like it in the USA.

We arrive at the Avignon station. We have a very easy time getting our reserved car from Hertz and settle into the economy-sized Peugeot. The French drive on the same side as we do, but they use roundabouts, which I enjoy quite a bit since they feel like a nice flow of direction instead of intersections with stopping and starting all the time.

It's obvious that Provence looks like California in its best and prettiest regions just inland from the coast. That's a disorienting feeling, not only because we've just been whisked from Paris but because we really aren't in California at all. Olives, wines, cheeses, citrus, fruits and terrain are very familiar, but while some would say we are copying the French in California, Provence has been what it is for two millenia, since the times of the Roman empire.  The croplands have been plowed a long time and buildings were not built to code, if you know what I mean.

We arrive at our our hotel, which is a villa on several acres, charming and very peaceful. The land is arid, like our western states. I think we are the only English-speaking people here. The desk clerk, one of the owners, helps me by trying his English while I hesitantly give it a go in French. It's weird, but sometimes I am fine and others I do very poorly. Not enough practice. Anyway, we are here.  We are tired, too.

After a nap, we dress for dinner and drive into town, San Remy de Provence, and begin a search for a dinner place.  There are winding streets and the town is on a gentle curving slope, so it's easy to get lost in the maze. I am fascinated, as usual, with architectural details, style, colors, light, texture, the air, the sun, everything. It's slowing me down badly, but I love it.

We find a bistro so cute it's ridiculous, the real deal, called Bistro de Marie, and I have to say I cannot describe it to you except that it's in an old building whose stone interior is worn, charming, decorated with many, many collections of old toys, kitchen items, furniture pieces, pictures, art, and curious lighting. Again, living up to a building code would be totally impossible. Building inspectors reading this, do not come to Provence; you will have nightmares.

Dinner? Slices of barely seared duck in a light mustard sauce paired with arugula in a dressing, braised Provencal rabbit with olives and potatoes. Mango sorbet floated on stewed cherries finished my meal. All light, all seasonal, all new to me. That, mesdames et messieurs, was quite a day.