Even “A Year in Provence” and the films made about Peter Mayle’s adventures during that time didn’t prepare us for the beauty of the views we found awaiting us as we arrived at Garnet 2, on the evening of Wednesday, April 22nd, 1998! We had flown Air France to Marseille, via Paris, on a comfortable flight, and been met by Idyll’s wonderful ‘contact man’, Max Tomlinson. (Where does Idyll find their people? Max came to Provence from England as a businessman, married teacher Regine, and they now live in L’Isle-sur-Sorgue with their two sons. He is a great resource about the area, a gracious host and yet businesslike and well-organized - ideal for us Untourists.)

Max took us by bus to Avignon’s Avis depot, where our small stickshift car was awaiting us with the trunk open, and our names on the dashboard! Linda drove off like a veteran, I read the directions (and breathed in at the roundabouts) and we soon arrived ‘chez Tomlinson’, where Regine gave us cool drinks and we awaited our ‘landlord’, summoned by a phone call from Max.

Monsieur Jacques Garnet arrived with a radiant smile and a firm handshake and shot off in true Provencal style towards our apartment: Garnet 2. Leaving the paved road we drove up towards the woods, past vineyards, olive trees and a cherry orchard in bloom. Here was the ‘mas’ - the true Provencal farmhouse -at the end of the unpaved lane, where ‘the forat Venasque’ begins.

We were already gazing at the sight of Mont Venfoux to the North - hazy in the evening sun, but impressive, nonetheless, and the view west across the valley with the Dentelles in the distance. It was so beautiful and peaceful, with the green of Spring and the clusters of orange roofs here and there, we could hardly pay attention to M. Jacques, as he opened the doors and showed us our part of the old farmhouse. We had a living-dining room, with fresh flowers on the table, a TV, a neat kitchen area with 4 gas burners, a microwave, a toaster-oven, double sink, and a refrigerator with all the ‘basics’ for breakfast within, plus ham, eggs, pate, Camembert, a cake, yogurt, 3 beers and a bottle of wine! Upstairs were 2 bedrooms with good double beds, a small bathroom with walk-in shower et al., and all with those wonderful views through the windows, set into deep stone walls, with bright lavender blue shutters. The walls inside were a soft yellow, and the whole effect was like a Monet garden to me - with a patio outside, and a blue trellis overhead, waiting for the vines to climb up it to give shade. The mop in a bucket on the front door step was a touch we really liked!

Round the corner from us were 2 similar apartments, and across the front (i.e. on the lane side) of this really large building was the ‘main’ residence -someone’s spacious home, with a swimming pool, garden and a high hedge of cypress trees. Originally, the Provençal ‘mas’ contained dwelling quarters for the families of the owner and the farmer~ his employe - and the stores, implements and even some of the livestock that went with farming in times past. In Provence, there are many large properties like this one, with wonderful and abundant stone for restructuring and new uses, while keeping the original character of the building.

We ate, and sat out to watch our first sunset and knew we were in for a treat!

Now to choose a few of the high spots of our visit for this record! Each day we fared forth with a plan made the night before, over the supper table. We went to each point of the compass: north to the Dentelles and south-west to Les Alpilles, both with their exquisite little towns1 clinging to the hilltops, dominating the valleys below, and full of history and the charm of old ways, as well as present-day living.

Flowers by every doorstep; chestnuts in blossom on the terraces where men gather to play boules in the evening or on Saturday afternoon; sometimes all the electric and telephone lines have been concealed under the streets; sometimes the process is incomplete, and there are weird plastic tubes with multicolored wires sticking up by doors and windows, soon to be hidden in gray tubes fastened to the walls close to the wisteria or clematis that hides them from our eyes: sometimes the village may still be festooned with power wires and phone lines, crisscrossing the streets, destroying vistas and inhibiting the shutterbugs!

The Luberon too, with little towns in broad valleys; small museums about the history of the corkscrew or the baking of bread or the processing of lavender - a major ‘crop’ later in the year ---- and everywhere, everywhere, grapevines, always grapevines! On the level ground of the broader valleys, on the slim terraces climbing the hillsides - old, black, stumpy vines beginning to show a sprut of green by the end of our stay, and young ones with enough green showing to let us know they’re rarin’ to go! You’d think Provence would produce enough wine for the whole world!

We visited the cities too - all within an hour or two’s reach - and most of them reached through beautiful straight avenues of plane trees, just leafing out: some huge and gnarled and obviously pollarded for many generations; some recently planted and too young to show the wonderful patterns and colors of the shedding bark so reminiscent of the older trees - in London as well as here!

Let me name some of these cities, so many with the creations of the Roman empire still standing and still in use: ARLES, on the River Rhone, with its first century Amphitheater, seating up to 20,000 spectators, and still used for a peculiar kind of Provencal, bloodless bullfighting! AVIGNON, with the Pont St Benezet - famous as the place where ‘on y danse’, and the overwhelming Palace des Papes, where seven popes ruled the Catholic church for many years.

This palace/fortress is in fine shape, with fascinating stories told into your ear in the language of your choice, by a neat handheld telephone system - the best I’ve ever experienced. ORANGE, also filled with Roman structures, including the huge Amphitheater where ‘Les Chorégies’ have taken place every summer since 1869. It was built between 27-5 B.C., seats a worldwide audience of thousands for such spectacles as Aida or Tosca, and is watched over by the original 11 foot statue of Caesar Augustus.

And last but not least, in fact largest of the cities, Aix-en-Provence, with its wide, plane-lined main street - the Cours Mirabeau - known as one of the most beautiful streets in the world. Here we came for the last 2 nights of our stay, so that we could visit the city and the area east of it, where stands Montagne Sainte Victoire, which Cezanne painted over and over again - even, once, from the garden of our hotel, Le Pigonnet. And where we found Vauvenargues and the chateau where Picasso lived and is buried! Nearer to the Mediterranean coast, this whole area is different from those others we had visited - we even saw SHEEP, several times, and a few, very few, cows!

I just have an anecdote or two left to share! One day we visited Gordes -the most breathtaking of those hilltop towns I mentioned. On the long climb from the carpark below to the town ‘en haut’, I espied a magnificent moth, clinging to the stone wall above the pavement. It must have been four or five inches across, as it rested there, slightly a quiver. It was several shades of beige and brown, and on each side of the brown, furry-looking body was an ‘eye’ - round and bold and black, with a ring of white around it, seeming to stare straight at me. As I looked at it, head on, its markings gave it the appearance of a cat or a fox, fierce and intimidating. What wonderful camouflage to protect this harmless creature from danger, I thought, as I took its picture and went on my way. Several days later, we visited St. Remy, tracing Van Gogh’s career, as he lived his anguished life, painting the wonderful light of Provence. Imagine my surprise to see a reproduction, in the museum there, showing a Van Gogh painting of two creatures like the one I had seen at Gordes - darker in color, with wings open, and a pair of the same fierce looking ‘eyes’ on each side of the body - and the title written: ‘Papillons fete de mort’ - death’s head butterflies! I asked if the curator had a reproduction of this Van Gogh painting, but there was none. I asked if she knew anything about this butterfly or moth, but the answer was: “Cést de Ia region” So I’m no ‘forarder about this awesome creature. I’ll try to research it more!

L’Isle sur Sorgue is the most charming town, set on an island with the river Sorgue dividing to flow on either side of it, and with ancient, mossy waterwheels continuing to turn for you pleasure, as you cross the little bridges from the ring-around road to the streets in town. It hosts, or is overwhelmed by, a twice weekly market which has to be one of the liveliest and most colorful in the whole of Provence!

Every kind of food stuff is there - dozens of different sausages, dozens of different cheeses, dozens of different breads, and then flowers, fruits (strawberries were in), vegetables (asparagus was everywhere), wine, trinkets, crockery, pottery, clothing and yard goods in brilliant Provencal prints, young men from North Africa with watches and belts (what else is new?), junk — we even saw a cage of several puppies on offer! Everyone turns out and strolls and buys, and round the outside of the island set up the antique and collectible and odds and ends dealers, so there is something for everyone! And the hurdygurdy man cranks his handle and the music plays, and the cheese-vendor born in Manchester and I had a chat in our own particular dialect! A happy place, and about five minutes’ drive from InterMarchee - the most up-to-date supermarket you could wish for on any continent!

A word about FOOD! We like to have our main meal at noon when we are traveling, and we don’t look for fancy restaurants, but prefer to eat where the locals do. The result is that in Provence we most often ate around 12-1:00 p.m., where we saw people gathering at the outside tables, and where the ‘plat du jour’ was one that appealed to us. This worked really well and we had delicious breads, soups, salads, meats and desserts! One day, in Aix, we chose the cafe despite the fact that ‘lapin’ was on the board, and had omelettes instead! Of course, pastries were great everywhere, especially little glazed fruit tarts and palmiers, which we often took home for supper. A baguette and strawberries from a roadside stand, and cheese from our refrigerator made an excellent meal.

The Provencal people are friendly and informal - they often smile and speak on the street or in shops, or as you sit on a bench with your afternoon ‘treat’! And - they take their dogs with them, wherever they go! Most everybody has at least one! We were told that the ratio of dogs to people is higher in France than any other country in Europe, and I can believe that. We saw more poodles and Bichons - oh, and Yorkies - than you can imagine. And most houses in our area had a large dog who came to the gate and barked as you passed by, under a sign that said “MECHANT CHIEN!” Most of them looked anything but naughty, and would probably have rolled over in delight if one had stopped to speak!

The driving ‘de la region’ is pretty hairy, especially at first. The drivers go very fast and tailgate like mad. They are very impatient at stop signs and don’t give you much quarter at the round-abouts either. The rules about right-of -way are pretty obscure and taken fairly lightly, so Linda figured out the best thing to do is what they do! Go pretty fast, keep your eyes very wide open and if pressed, pull over if you can’t get away! This worked really well. There are many stretches of straight road between the towns, where you can really move it, so long as you are ready for the next round-about and the sign which will tell you the right point of the compass to take, as you swing around the pretty gardens in the middle! (We never took the toll roads at all!)

I think I have said enough to give the flavor of our Two Weeks in Provence. It is quite nostalgic to write about it, even now, and I would quickly be packed and ready to go in search of my magical moth, or the sight of Mt Ventoux from Gamet 2, if someone gave me ‘the nod’!