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.

Last Night in Paris

The last full day in Paris is when I feel like I've got my routine figured out, walking around, dealing with things.  Only problem is I wake up feeling a little funky and don't know if it's going to get better or worse.  I usually recommend water and exercise to get de-funked, so I take my own advice and do just that. But, I do not feel better much faster at all.

Feeling crummy in a big foreign city is just the same as feeling crummy in your own home except you have to plan better.  I sit on my bed and think:  Okay, this is not a bad thing, it's just a not-so-great thing. It could be a lot worse. I am feeling stable, no fever, just a headache and kind of not on top of my game. Not so awful. What do I need to do?

I dress, gather my things, and go to the front desk of my hotel. "Ou est le pharmacie?" I ask.

"A droite," says the clerk. "C'est ici, a droite."  It's right here, to the right. Cool. Who could ask for better than that?

I buy a little packet of acetominophen and begin my walk to the 5th Arrondissement with waves of Not Feeling So Good coming over me.  Little waves, but waves nevertheless. Malaise. On the uphill walk along Rue St. Michel, a big long group of school kids overtake me, surround me and sort of carry me along in their energetic, talkative midst, going my direction for quite a way. I forget about waves of feeling Not So Good and imagine I've begun floating on a river with a lot of otters who are creating the current.  They peel off when I have only about a quarter mile to go and disappear. The air seems to go flat.

I reach the last corner and think about going back to my cafe, la salle de manger, I spent time at yesterday. It seems to be calling me, so I answer with a happy sigh and give in. I have quite a bit of time. If you are going to ever spend time looking for your perfect cafe, give it time. Do not rush the cafe experience. Most of the good of it is in watching the world pass by your table and thinking about your day, your evening, your plans, your everything. You need time.

I take my time and my medicine and my writing pad and pen and sit at a table where the attendant leans toward me, states what I want before I even say it, then brings it to me in about a minute. Same as yesterday, thank the angels in heaven, I munch on the croissant spread with cherry jam and sip my espresso. I take my medicine with a steady supply of water and after some writing and thinking about life and writing and the size of my feet and what I've learned this week, I feel better.  Not so random. You think about those things, too, admit it.

The Paris Writers Retreat commences on its final day and then has to draw to a close. Of the thirteen who started, twelve finish and of those, two or three have very unique and powerful stories that will nearly write themselves. In cases like that, the author almost has to just step out of the way so the story can flow out. The rest of us will have to keep working on story line, character development, and setting until it all hangs together. I am encouraged and discouraged all at once but I have lots more tools to use now. I feel it has been worth it.

We all agree that coming and going to and from one place where we have spent time and had many conversations has given us a unique and much-appreciated vehicle with which to experience this city. We are invited by Wendy Rohm, the instructor who also has her own agency, to send her our query letters once we get our manuscripts written. She has a little more sympathy for writers than a lot of agents do because she also writes.

I am well again, I feel pretty good, and I have an armful of new friends.  One of them, Fabrice, a French playwright, announces it's his birthday, so someone runs off to a patisserie nearby for goodies and comes back with a couple of boxes of pastries so delightful it seems a real shame to cut them up and eat them. We sing to Fabrice, snap a lot of photos and enjoy a classic traditional French meal at La Forge for a couple of hours.  My meal is a white fish wrapped in bacon strips and bathed in a delicate white wine sauce with braised leeks. I keep seeing things on the menus around town that I've no idea about and keep discovering flavor combinations and that you don't have to die to go to heaven. You can just eat in a restaurant in France.

There is so much I don't know, I wail to myself, so much yet to experience and discover.  One lifetime is not long enough. If anyone ever says "I'm bored," all you have to do is kick them out of the house and tell them to go travel. Boredom will instantly stop. If that doesn't do it, they're hopeless.

I finish my day by walking a different way home with one of the retreat attendees, Julia, and we say our quick good-byes. Wow, my last night in Paris, sort of. I'll be back at the end of next week but in a different part of town. It's getting cloudy and sunset will be upon me in a little while, so I duck into the supermarket across from my hotel, buy some groceries for dinner and hide out in my little hotel room.

The sunset is glorious, as if Joan of Arc could come tearing down the street on her white charger or Napoleon's army is on the march again. Italian tourists are whooping it up soon afterward in the cafe down on the street, singing in Italian and cheering for lots of things, small and large. Their voices are joyous, lifting all the way up to the highest rooftops, far into the distance to the river where they meet the currents and breezes that carry them far away in the night.

la salle a manger: My Little Cafe

I found a sweet little cafe in Paris yesterday, perfect for me. It took me some time, but I got it right. It calls itself "la salle a manger" all in lower case letters like that. It's modest, not very famous at all, not the classic French cafe style that knocks people out when they see them (cute bistro chairs, handsome waiters, cool decor, great croissants or coffee, cool wood paneling and decor).  

I like this little cafe because of where it is.  That is, near a lot of food in a genuine marketplace where a real community thrives. I can hear and see French ordinary life coming and going without a lot of traffic belching exhaust and kinetic energy everywhere.

I walk the route to the 5th Arrondissement every day this week, a distance that takes a solid 20 minutes of steady walking, a nice walk actually that can be varied quite a bit, and if I really lived here I would vary it. I live here only these five days though, so I stick to my usual path. The route ends on Rue Broca just a skip and a jump from the outdoor market at Rue Mouffetard.  

This rue (street) is written about in the tourist books, so I dog-eared the page when I studied up for this trip. Outdoor markets are a big priority for me, but this is different. Well, first of all it's France. Beyond that - which you have to realize immediately means you are talking about terrific bread, zillions of cheeses, thousands of wines, a cuisine that inspires many visitors to rapturous exclamations about flavor, beauty and richness - you have at least a millenium of tradition to deal with.  

So, with an eye for quality and a plan for a meal in mind, you walk slowly on this cobbled lane. It slants gently upward and is lined on both sides for a long city block with small speciality stores selling cheese, wine, meats, seafood, chocolates, pasta, outdoor stalls with vegetables and fruits, and a couple of bistros to break up all the gastronomic intensity.  

Young women pushing strollers, older women dressed in their market and town clothes, market men in their overalls, aprons or jackets unloading trucks and tourists holding maps as they scan street signs and buildings for hints of where they are - all of them come to this little street to get a sense of what the day has to offer and how things are going. You can imagine your own destiny, remember lost loves, create a new existence for yourself, as I did, once I found my seat. It happens so easily.

At this little cafe, you sit outdoors or in. The waitress (unusual as far as I know) brings you a menu written in the language you need. You order and she brings you a serving tray set with the items just as soon as your coffee is made.  Each cup is made fresh. If you wish some chocolate to drink in this city, you are given a small porcelain pitcher of hot chocolate and a foaming hot cup of milk.  You pour the milk into your cup, add as much of the chocolate as you like, add sugar if that suits you, and stir. It's a fine treat to indulge in, to satisfy your soul.

The attendant brings you a small holder of four jars that contain cherry jam, apricot jam, honey and a nutella-like spread. You get a flaky croissant that probably is about, oh I dunno, forbidden on Weight Watchers, maybe about 400 calories, something like that and some other bread.  You may have eggs or yogurt and other breakfast items. Yogurt comes in a small glass container with a foil cap pressed onto it.  It's mild and semi-creamy, very satisfying.



You may sit and read or talk or dream or write or anything reasonable, for as long as you need to. There is some little something about this spot that suits me better than the few other cafes (out of hundreds and hundreds all over the city) that I've tried.  Now that I've found my sweet spot in the world, I only have one other day to enjoy it.  I hope the memory sustains me for a long time ahead.