Grand Tour – Taran's Tales

Provence part four – Exploring Le Dracénois

With villages aplenty to discover and explore, we started by heading east to Bargemon, partly because it was the only village in the area that I knew anything about. My first wife and I had spent ten days there many years ago when our sons were still little more than toddlers, staying in a very basic, very rustic one-bedroom cottage, with a view of the distant hills from it’s rough, untended garden. I thought it would be fun to find that cottage, not realizing that forty-year-old memories tend to be so vague that it would be like looking for a needle in a hay-stack. Bargemon is actually much bigger than the official population of 1,400 would indicate, but it is still “lovely with its shady narrow streets and 12^th century town-walls”.

Shady narrow streets and 12th century town walls. . .

It is also quite chic, and “a bit of a haven for middle-class professional Brits” [https://theguardian.com/travel/2003/may/24/france.guardiansaturdaytravelsection]. So it was indeed a search in vain, but all the same we enjoyed wandering up and down the steep streets of the pretty village tumbling down the hillside. We “oohed and arghed” at the superb views of the valley below and of the neighbouring village, Claviers, hiding in the green forest in the distance; we peered through mysterious doorways as we tackled the damp stone paths down between the gardens of the many beautifully renovated village houses, all the while becoming slightly envious of the people living there.

There were lots of studios and artsy shops, most of which were closed in mid-October, two or three museums such as a typewriter museum, Musée des Machines à Écrire, and several B&B’s, all fairly good signs of an active ex-pat community and steady tourist business. The ubiquitous drinking fountains seemed to be everywhere, as well as sturdy, ancient oak doors set in the stone-walls. But, as it was a rather cool, grey, damp day, we soon required a warm cup of coffee, which we found in Café de Commerce, across from Eglise Saint-Etienne on Place Philippe-Chauvier. I chatted with the proprietor as he prepared our much-needed beverages, whilst Celine grabbed a couple of seats at a small table outside, from where we could people-watch, and immediately found herself drawn into conversation with an elegant, elderly, Spanish gentleman, with hair and beard as white as his shirt and trousers.

Martin Frias turned out to be an established artist and iconic celebrity photographer, well-known among the stars of film and rock music, who was visiting the local Beddington Gallery where his work and some paintings by his girlfriend Christina, were on display. We chatted awhile, learning about his friendship with that other famous Spanish artist, his mentor Salvador Dali, and his intimate knowledge of Dali’s rather unconventional sex-life. (Coincidentally, in the last few days as I am writing this post, in keeping with his surrealist way of life, Dali’s remains were exhumed at the request of a Spanish psychic Pilar Abel Martinez, eager to prove she was Dali’s daughter. Sadly for her, the DNA results proved negative!). He then invited us to visit the gallery where we met the willowy Christina, and were made welcome by Guy Beddington, the English proprietor. It was interesting to get a peek inside one of the old village houses, and to see what great things can be done with a virtual ruin, an innovative mind and a chunk of money. We spent about an hour there admiring the works on display; I think we both liked Christina’s work the most, but Senor Frias was eager to tell us more about his many photo assignments with some of our favourite rock musicians like Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Alice Cooper and Mick Jagger.

Anyhow, we still had a long way to go to complete our day’s tour and so we eventually took our leave, grabbed a second coffee at the Commerce, and set off westwards through a landscape of small fields and woodland and then winding through the wild Gorge du Châteaudouble towards our next village.

Tourtour, nicknamed “the village in the sky”, is a much smaller commune (population 536 in 2006), sitting atop a small plateau, surrounded by sloping meadows with grazing cows, small farm buildings and copses of oak trees. A member of “Les Plus Beaux Villages de France” association it does indeed have a quiet, rustic charm and, as it’s nickname implies, also has wonderful views towards the Mediterranean coast. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, the evening cool was setting in with a vengeance and we only managed a quick circuit of what was definitely a place to be visited again at a more leisurely pace. So before long, we jumped back into our warm car and drove home through the dusk.

Thunderstorms and heavy rain over the next two days confined us to barracks, except during a brief sunny respite the second afternoon, when we went for a quick walk up the hill into the countryside above Lorgues, picking up a few handfuls of fallen walnuts along the way, following the example of an elderly local lady we saw, who had come out well prepared with a large bag to collect her share.

In the end it was more than a week later that we eventually returned, this time on a glorious sunny day, and we were able to take in the full beauty of the village and it’s rural surroundings. Tourtour is another village on top of a hill, but on a far more gentle slope than Bargemon. The highest point in the village is occupied by the delightfully simple, Romanesque church of Saint-Denis.

A solid stone construction with only two windows, a narrow slit above the altar, and a small rose window high above the entrance, it gives the impression of having been built to provide sanctuary from marauders. A little way downhill from the church is another unusual edifice, Le Château Communal; now housing the town hall and the post-office, its windowless round towers at its four corners strengthening the idea of a village built with a need to protect the inhabitants, a feeling further reinforced by a second castle, Le Vieux Château, at the other end of the village. Again this is a village that has attracted the wealthy over the years and so many of the fourteenth and fifteenth century dwellings have been converted into luxurious modern homes, though this in no way detracts from the prettiness of the place. The heart of the village is Place des Ormeaux, with a full retinue of art studios, cafés and restaurants, and an office of Sotheby’s estate agents, belying the wealth that evidently prevails in the village. At one side of the square is the local men’s club, L’Union, where an affable old man was painting a gate, and we had an interesting chat with him and his wife about the history of Tourtour. A nice experience that made us realise there are still a few true locals living in the village, in spite of the overall impression of affluence.

Moving along again among more wooded hills, we came to the fairly unassuming village of Aups where we took our daily coffee in the Café du Centre while chatting to the owner, learning only that her husband was an interior designer! The local church, La Collégiale Saint-Pancrace, was nothing special but did lay claim to having been where insurgents against the coup d’état of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte took refuge during the battle of Aups in 1851. So finding little else of interest, we drove on, pausing in the small village of Tavernes only to buy fruit for the navigator and a pain au chocolat for the driver, to eventually arrive in the town of Barjols, as dusk drew down around us. This was a shame, as we later realized there was a lot to see in Barjols, a town huddled in the crux of a semi-circle of hills and built directly below a limestone cliff. There are 42 fountains and wash houses in the town and four rivers flow through it, and consequently it was historically renowned for its tanneries, which these days are celebrated by the Fête des Tripettes.

So once again, the shorter days of autumn had beaten us, making us realise the one problem of touring at that time of the year, realistically the only disadvantage, given the joy of having so many places almost to ourselves and being able to appreciate the calm that can be found in a touristy venue when the summer crowds aren’t there. Luckily we still had plenty more days to explore the many villages that remained on our recommended list, but we decided our next escapade would be to head north to see the dramatic Gorge du Verdon . . .

Provence Part Three – Local peregrinations.

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,

The stained-glass window in Eglise du Martyre de Saint-Jean-Baptiste

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 13^th 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.

Inside Le Parage, the old centre of Les Arcs-sur-Argens

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.

La Tour de Taradel and Chapelle Saint-Martin

Our route home took us through the village of Taradeau, on the hill behind and above which is the 12^th 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.

. . . and this was the warning that we missed!

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.

Enjoying the afternoon sunshine in the quiet calm of an out-of-season visit to L’Abbaye du Thoronet

The simple plain architecture of L’Abbaye du Thoronet

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 . .

Step one, a month in Lyon.

The sun was shining brightly as these two weary travellers unloaded their bags from the taxi outside 24 rue Lanterne, on a medieval thoroughfare whereon blood flowed freely from the many boucheries of yesteryear, till the neighbourhood gentrified and became the home of famous goldsmiths, painters and surgeons, and finally the site of the Hot Club de Lyon, France’s first gallery devoted entirely to jazz, right next door at no.26. Greeted at the door by our new host, we entered our new temporary home within a noble 17th century building, with its tall, heavy, wooden front door, two steps up from the street, and after climbing another 150 steps upwards we arrived at the tiny garret we knew only as “Les Toits de Lyon”, a miniscule penthouse with 360 degree panoramic views across the rooftops of Old Lyon, that we would call home for the next four weeks.

Les toits de Lyon, seen from our bedroom window.

Why then did we start in Lyon? A very good question, the simple answer to which is that that beautiful city was more or less halfway between Paris, our initial European landing place, and Provence, our first designated area of investigation, and from all accounts was a city that deserved the attention of two discerning travellers. We had also discovered that it was home to several worthy learning establishments where we might further our knowledge of the local language, plus the draw for one of our number who was particularly intrigued by its reputation among the gourmands of this world, and . . . why not? Why not indeed, for as we soon discovered Lyon is a truly wonderful city to experience. Built around the confluence of two great rivers, the Saône and the Rhone, it has a history that goes back to ancient times when it was the capital of the Roman province Gallia Lugdunensis. The oldest medieval and renaissance parts of the city straddle the River Saône and spread eastwards to the banks of the River Rhône, across the other side of which the city spread as industry boomed during and after the French Revolution and on into the 19th and 20th centuries. Lots of history to explore, museums to visit, churches to admire and gastronomy to discover, and plenty of time in which to do these things; for this is not touring à la Thomas Cook, more along the lines of The Grand Tour, so admired by the wealthy young bloods, poets and artists in the days of the horse and carriage, when luggage meant a whole lot more than one can cram into a carry-on on Ryanair!

Having established ourselves into our little nest, five flights – and no lift – high above rue Lanterne, with it’s birds eye view of the corrugated red clay roof tiles of the old city and across to La Basilique de Notre Dame de Fourvière

La Basilique de Notre Dame de Fourviere, from our studio window.

sitting imposingly atop the hill of Fourvière above the bouchons of La Vieille Ville de Lyon on the western bank of the Saône, we soon settled into our daily life as students at L’Inflexyon, a small establishment offering language courses at many levels of competence. It is fair to say that we were certainly the elders among our classmates, an eclectic group of fifteen or more Asians and Europeans from many different walks of life, some studying to gain credits for university and others like us, wishing to hone our language skills to better appreciate the finer points of conversations and life in La Belle France. We studied there for a fortnight, about five hours a day, five days a week, enjoying our walk to get there for 09:00 hours, in the fresh morning air among office workers, parents taking their children to a creche or to school, shop owners preparing themselves to open at 9.30 or 10, small delivery lorries, city trams and buses and street cleaning vehicles, the sidewalks nearly all cleaned of the previous day’s detritus, past the few cafes open to satisfy the early morning caffeine fix, and up the hill towards Croix Rousse and so to our destination, on the narrow, unimposing rue René Leynaud. Our, mainly young, teachers were also an interesting ethnic mix, French born and bred by no means in the majority it seemed. After studying assiduously for three hours we would take a lunch break, which gave us a reason to test out the local cafes, several of which, such as Le Tigre on Montée de la Grande Côte, offered good healthy options so we weren’t obliged to over-indulge on well-filled crispy baguettes, coffee and patisseries, despite the protestations of one of our number who continuously found the temptations of french fromages, saucissons and various offal-based delights extremely difficult to resist. Being close to the Opera National de Lyon and the Hotel de Ville, we would often walk off our lunch wandering around the handsome streets, enjoying the warm September sunshine. Sometimes we’d just sit beside the fountain in the corner of Place de la Comédie and people-watch, that time-honoured activity that is so much a part of European cafe culture. After a further hour or so of study, we would wend our way back to rue Lanterne, sometimes stopping for groceries at a Bio store on the way, at other times detouring to take in the beauty of the city of Lyon, it’s superb position between two great rivers and surrounded by hills on three sides and its delightful architectural mélange. Our first taste of daily life in France suited us very well!