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 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 . . .