After “doing” Saint-Tropez, we felt we should get back to reality and start looking around at the sort of places where we might consider living, which after all was the primary objective of this Grand Tour.
Provence, is quite rightly renowned for it’s wonderful scenery and its profusion of ancient villages perched on hilltops and flowing down hillsides. The department of Var, and particularly the region of Le Dracénois, has more than its fair share of these villages [visit www.tourisme-en-france.com/fr/regions-france/340/le-dracenois for an interactive map of the region].
A local example was Les Arcs-sur-Argens, just a few miles down the road from Lorgues. However, the approach was not very encouraging; the village, actually a town these days, is fairly close to the autoroute and consequently we initially found ourselves in amongst several factories, and some not very attractive, fairly modern, housing developments sprawling down into the valley. We could see the ancient village on the hillside above us and, not really knowing where we were, followed our noses till we found a parking place next to the elegant Eglise du Martyre de Saint-Jean-Baptiste. Looking inside churches is something this irreligious travelling couple does unfailingly in every city, town or village we visit. The art and architecture are what we admire the most, and even this unassuming edifice did not disappoint having some unusual stained-glass windows,
and the remnants of quite beautiful wall paintings in the small chapels along each side of the nave. Outside the front door was a fine specimen of France’s ubiquitous plane tree population, spreading its branches across the little car park, as well as a small fountain against the retaining wall with the all-too-common notice “Eau non potable”, a sign of the deteriorating environment in this modern age. The ancient village of Les Arcs, originally named Archos in 1010AD, mainly dates back to the 13th century and is fortified, so first we needed to find a gateway to get in. A wander along narrow streets in a slightly uphill direction found us at the Clock Tower and our entry into a beautiful medieval environment, meticulously maintained and evidently a chic place to live.
The old center is oddly called the Parage, a word which in both archaic English and French seems to refer to social rank, family lineage, or feudal land tenure. So it appears it has always been a snobby place to live! All the same it was also a very attractive place to stroll around for those prepared to plod up and down steep, narrow cobbled streets.
Our route home took us through the village of Taradeau, on the hill behind and above which is the 12th century watch tower, La Tour de Taradel. You can’t normally enter either the tower itself or the small Chapelle Saint-Martin next door; but while we were walking around outside, we met a French lady who was trying out the acoustics of the chapel by singing most melodiously through a small open window in the wall, a truly angelic voice in such a peaceful place. We also discovered that from the adjacent car-park, a rough road that provides firefighters access to the wooded hillsides above, was also a designated footpath leading along the side of the ridge back towards Les Arcs; later during our stay in Lorgues, we returned two or three times to take what proved to be one of the loveliest walks we found in Provence, wending alongside vineyards from which we gleaned the odd bunch of dried-out, but very sweet, raisin-like grapes as we passed. We befriended a couple of local ladies who seemed to take this walk regularly in the afternoon sunshine, and whom we bumped into each time we were there.
And the time we took the upward detour to the very top of the small colline, we discovered the Oppidum, the remains of an ancient pre-Roman fortified settlement, in a commanding position with views across the valleys on both sides of the hill. All that is to be seen today are the old walls, which have been slowly revealed by local volunteers clearing the thick brush which had kept the site well hidden over the centuries. There is a wonderful rocky viewpoint nearby, overlooking the valley below, from where one can see all the distant peaks towards the Mediterranean thirty miles away, and below us, the trains on the railway and traffic on the autoroute looking like toys in the distance. On the track on the way up, we found some very soft, red and orange fruits, a bit like little strawberries, fallen from a nearby tree, one of which my trusty taster boldly bit into and proclaimed to be delicious; so we happily ate several handfuls of them. During our descent we came across a friendly local gentleman scrabbling among the brush for plants and, chatting to him as was our wont, we learnt that these tasty fruits were called arbouses . It seems they are not commonly harvested [www.tous-les-fruits.com] although a few weeks later we were offered them when we went to dine with some friends in Languedoc.
Always eager to walk the local trails and footpaths, one day we had an interesting experience on another trail a couple of miles outside of Lorgues, when we found ourselves walking past a line of chasseurs standing at regular intervals beside the track. It seems we had unwittingly marched into the middle of a hunt for wild boars, and these worthies in their camouflage clothing, though also wearing dayglo orange baseball caps (!!?), and armed with powerful hunting rifles, were waiting for their fellow human predators to flush out the boars in our direction. Not wearing bright orange caps ourselves, we deemed it unwise to hang around to chat for long, and can only assume the hunt was successful as we heard the distant sound of several shots as we headed on up the hill through a lovely green forest. We later learnt that the local winegrowers do not take kindly to having wild boars snuffling the ground around their precious vines and are happy to sponsor these gun-toting hunters to eliminate as many as they can. A not altogether happy compromise between the commercial needs of viniculturists and the ideals of environmentalists, it is quite a common occurrence throughout the wilder areas of southern France, as we were to find out later in our travels.
Another find in the immediate area was the Abbaye du Thoronet. Built between 1160 and 1230 this beautiful Cistercian abbey, one of three abbeys known as the “Three Sisters of Provence”, came to be restored as a Monument historique in the mid-eighteen hundreds, after it was brought to the attention of the writer Prosper Merrimée who was also the first official inspector of monuments in France. We thoroughly enjoyed the peacefulness of the location in a river valley surrounded by olive groves, as well as the plain, yet precise simplicity of the architecture, which is said to have been the inspiration of many modern architects.
We met a couple from Switzerland and sat on the grass chatting with them for a half hour or more until the afternoon sun settled behind the surrounding hills and the autumnal cool of the evening made us glad to return to the warmth of our car that had been sitting in the sunshine all afternoon. Definitely a place not to be missed, although I suspect the quiet ambience we found so attractive, would be missing in the busy tourist season.
Of course no visit to this part of France can be complete without a stop at at least one wine store. The next afternoon, having had a lazy start to the day, we drove to nearby Flayosc, another pretty little village with a simple small church. On the way back we pulled in to the Sarl Cellier des 3 Collines, tasted two or three of the local wines, and came away with just one bottle of vin rouge, d’huile d’olive, et des herbes de Provence et Gressini! Those few items, along with the wild thyme that Celine, who always kept a keen eye on the ground for the many wild herbs that grow profusely in the area, had picked on our walks, would provide us with a few of the basics for another healthy Provençal style meal.
And so the time arrived to expand our horizons a bit further, a circuitous route to Bargemon and beyond . .
