At last! The Provence I had been waiting for, the Provence of golden sunshine on green fields and vineyards, the Provence of Peter Mayle. We had had a little taste of it in Chateauneuf-du -Pape. This afternoon, we would be going around the charming villages of Provence, some of “le plus beaux villages de France”.
We had picked up a number of people in Avignon (and dropped off the one chap who had joined us during the morning). Two were Japanese, one was Australian and another from Argentina, plus one American couple from (if I recall correctly) Michigan. So Caroline, our guide, had more people to explain things to. And since Americans tend to ask a lot of questions, we learnt a lot more. For example, the difference between lavende and lavendin. Apparently, the “true” lavender is lavende; it grows in higher regions and tends to be finer. Lavendin on the other hand grows at lower altitudes and tends to have a far stronger (not necessarily a bad thing?) and more camphorated smell. More details can be found on the
lavender museum website (fine lavender is lavende and spike lavender, lavendin). According to the French, “true” lavender is found only in Provence but lavendin can be found anywhere (more common) such as the variety found in Hokkaido, Japan (the Japanese couple were saddened to hear this).
We also had the pleasure of hearing our guide correct the American gentleman’s attempts at pronouncing French words. I was reminded of the comment in Sixty Million Frenchmen that the French have no compunction about correcting pronunciation and grammar mistakes made by others.
Our first stop was however not in a little Provencal village but at
Pont-du-Gard, a Roman aqueduct which spanned the River Gardon (at its narrowest point) and which is yet another UNESCO world heritage site. The total length of the aqueduct is about 50 kilometres, stretching from its originating spring, near Uzès to Nîmes. The bridge has three levels, the first the arches spanning the river, the next carrying the water and the third a series of small arches to cover the water channel so it arrives at its destination cleaner. It amazed me to see how broad the bridge was. It is broad enough for a little car to drive on. The bridge is in excellent condition – likely there have been some repairs and restoration work done but in general, those Romans did a good job. As I said before, they knew what they were doing.
Leaving the bridge, we went first to Les Baux de Provence. Now I am a little annoyed with myself because I didn’t catch that the chateau in this village is supposed to be one of those major sights to see in the whole of Provence. I can’t recall Caroline mentioning it, but she did mention most things so maybe I just missed it. Anyway, Les Baux is a village on a hill in the middle of this huge valley of strangely shaped stones. The houses in the village are made of similar stone – they are all of similar colour. Life must be hard here outside tourist season.
It was already fairly windy when we were there – I cannot imagine what it must be like during the period of the mistral when the wind howls around the windows and doors. What was surprising was the large number of dogs in this little village. I can only conclude that there is a fair amount of domestic tourism and the French take their dogs on holiday. Sometimes, it can result in little confrontations...
We drove next to the little village of Gordes. Now Gordes is famous for being one of the most beautiful villages in France, but in addition it was the location for the
café featured in the movie “A Good Year” starring Russell Crowe and Albert Finney (Russell Crowe’s character gets together with the owner of the café
). I’d just happened to catch the movie on cable before leaving Singapore (I read the book as well – there are certain differences) and frankly, I found it hard to recognize the café, but fortunately our guide was able to direct us to the correct spot. Gordes was even windier than Les Baux and it seemed to me that some of the attractions were closed so even after you walk down the hill against the wind you don’t get rewarded by getting to see something interesting. We did visit the little village church.
It was at the point of our departure from Gordes that the Argentinian lady informed our guide that she had to catch the 7.40pm TGV train from Avignon to Lyon. Caroline said that she wished that the Argentinian lady could have told her a little earlier of the train time. Now here you must understand that there sometimes seems to be some differences in timing from the website to what the tour operator is working on. For example, we thought that our tour to the chateaux in the Loire Valley would end comfortably by 7pm when it ended a little after, resulting in a great rush for us to catch our train back to Paris. Here, she apparently thought the tour would end at 7pm when it was actually ending at 7.30pm. Moral of the story: always ask what time the tour ends and tell the driver if you need to take a train.
We rushed to the next stop – the village of Roussillon, famous for its beautiful red, orange and ochre coloured houses. The clay for the houses was taken from the nearby cliffs – which are of red, orange, ochre etc. It was probably the prettiest of the three villages we had seen that day. But the sun was going down and the shops were starting to close. Anyway, we rushed straight back to Avignon TGV station and got there by 7.30am – just in time for the Argentinian lady to catch her train! We gave Caroline a round of applause.
We drove back to Avignon city centre after that exciting dash to the train station. Since we were tired out, we had a quiet dinner of moulles frittes at a German eatery we had seen the previous day. Washed down with a glass of Kanterbrau beer.
Toujours Provence, indeed. It was A Good Day. Lots of great
photos.
p.s. Incidentally it was not exactly my dream day in Provence. It was slightly overcast. But then, it does make it more comfortable to walk around.
