Saturday in Provence: A Retrospective

As you know, yesterday we rented a car and drove north to the Luberon. That's the part of Provence made famous by Peter Mayle, A Year in Provence (1989) and several sequels by the same author. Provence is such a big area of France (cf. California) that it's hard to know what people are expecting when they say they are going there on vacation, but if they want the Provence of small towns, fresh fruit, and dramatic hill-and-valley terrain, then they want the Luberon, or more generally the department of the Vaucluse.

Our rental was a Renault Scénic, which is one of those small-format family hatchbacks that has become popular lately. (We rented a similar Dodge Caliber to get from our home to the airport.) Ally liked driving it, and it was comfortable enough, particularly if you were not in the back seat as these luckless individuals were. On the way out of Aix, we stopped at the Géant Casino, a "hypermarket" which is much bigger than any Wal-Mart or Target you may be imagining. Don't let the movies or the quaint markets you've visited fool you; real French people actually do their shopping in huge stores, where they get everything in bulk.

Our first tourist stop was Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, called the Venice of the Luberon because it has rivers and canals running through it. Europeans are fond of calling any city, town, or village "the Venice of X" on the slimmest pretense. Why, I wonder? I associate Venice with being lost, paying high prices, and wondering what you were thinking when you got on the train. Isle-sur-la-Sorgue has a better claim to fame, though. Most people know that Jim Morrison died in Paris, but they are probably not aware that a Doors song was inspired by Morrison's visit to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, which translates literally to "Island on the Sorgue." (The lyrics were changed to make the song more marketable.) Ally and I spent most of the day singing "Island on the Sorgue" to each other. The joke never got old.

It was lunch time when we got to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, so we pulled out the lunches we had made. Yes, we packed lunches back in Aix: sandwiches made with a horrible-looking, and therefore exquisite, purple tomato and mozzarella accompanied by fresh fruit which most likely came from the region we were visiting. It was happy to be home! We discovered that Eli is fully capable of --and very enthused about--biting into apricots and pears, so let him eat that way. His tiny bite marks are so cute when they're on fruit.

We had our picnic in a park on the Sorgue. Also eating there were some people from town, other vacationers, and the town's vagabonds with their dogs. This one guy very purposefully walked over to a garbage can, pulled out a can of beer, and drank from it, as if he'd left it there for later. He went on to pull out a bunch more and do the same thing, then moved on to the other poubelles, making me wonder the first beer actually had been his. I did not know about this way of finding beverages. It was not in the Rick Steves guide, which is surprising considering that he insists you can eat for free in Europe by sitting in restaurants and demanding free bread in the local tongue. (Again, not a practice we recommend.)



We bought ice cream cones for dessert, then drove on to Gordes, passing through bright fields of poppies along the way. This part of France is noted for cultivation of fruit, particularly cherries, apricots, peaches, and strawberries. Grapes from this region are used to make wines with the appellation Côtes du Luberon (mostly reds). We saw many vineyards and orchards during our drive. We didn't stop to taste any wine or buy any fruit, since we can get this stuff in stores and markets and, more important, we wanted to get our car back to the agency promptly. We think we will go winetasting near Lyon, where there are more prestigious vineyards.



Gordes is a magnificent hilltop village offering spectacular views across the valley to the north. We took Eli up and down some grades that exceeded thirty percent. Besides the vista--which alone justifies visiting the town--there is a cute church, a war memorial (who could have imagined?), and a café with the curious name "Cercle Républicain." The last is what the illegal social democratic organizations of this region were called in the 1840s, the last decade of the July Monarchy.

In Gordes we started noticing lots of American tourists. I guess we're not the only Americans willing to brave the poor exchange rate, high airfares, and France's renowned hatred of liberty. We have been surprised so far by the low incidence of American students in Aix. Lots of universities have summer programs here, but the students seem to be staying away from downtown.

We continued to Roussillon, which sits atop a huge deposit of ocher, as the photograph indicates. (Roussillon is not to be confused with a larger Roussillon in French Catalonia. So just don't.) After driving up to the town, braving some tiny streets, and parking, we wandered around. Christopher bought some ocher that he plans to turn into paint. Roussillon is supposed to have the world's best ocher; the fact that it's located in an area that artists frequent certainly can't have hurt the brisk business done by the town's ocher merchants.

Isn't this photograph great? It's part of a series Mary has been shooting so that he will have a supply of author photos in case he writes a book. "Christopher Dye, MFA, splits his time between Manhattan and Provence. Besides the subject of this book, he is interested in sustainable agriculture, world dairy products, music that will become uncool if you start listening to it, and his nephew, Eli." This is about the least cheesy of the pictures.



It was getting late and we were supposed to have the car back by six. The rain had also begun to come down. We took what looked to us like a shortcut through Apt. Yes, that's the name of the town, not just what Lisa's analogy between the Whore of Babylon and the First Church of Springfield was. Apt is kind of bigger than we'd been hoping. It might be a nice place to find a hotel, but has no place on a driving itinerary. Eli decided to sleep around three. He had been up since five-thirty!

We drove south through a picturesque gorge. That meant the road was kind of adventurous. Ally, as you may know, does not remember much of our trip to Ireland because she was morning sick the whole time. I have periodically tried to relate to her the horror of driving on Irish roads; however, driving in the Luberon was much more challenging. I always feel safe with her at the wheel and this was no exception.



Crossing the Durance, we returned to the outskirts of Aix and the Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence wine region (rosés and reds). The rain was falling and there was a surprising amount of traffic for a Saturday afternoon. Mother's Day travelers, perhaps?

We tried our best but we got back to Aix a little late. We had a twenty-four-hour rental, but the downtown agency was going to be closed Sunday, so we'd have to return the car to the TGV station and take a shuttlebus back. Fortunately, there were still people at the agency at six-twenty and they were willing to accept the car even though they didn't have to. Then we came back home and did things I've already told you about.