Provence on my Mind
Last week I began rereading Peter Mayle’s wonderful 1989 book A Year in Provence. Before long, I was there again as if it were yesterday. In late April 2002, I spent a week in a Provencal valley situated between two historic towns—St. Remy de Provence and Les Baux. My traveling companions for the week were Judith, Maudy, Moreton, Mary Ann, Mardie, Mary Jane, and Sam. Save for Mary Jane from Colorado and me, the rest of the group lived in North Carolina. By week’s end, we had taken on a collective identity tied to the magical place we had come to explore and to our own personal stories.
When traveling with a small group, routines and patterns settle in tout de suite. Breakfast was served between 8:00 and 9:00 in the Bastide (main house) at Aux Deux Soeurs—a 17th century estate where we stayed. In the Cottage that I shared with Moreton and Maudy, I was the early riser. Up at 5:30 a.m., I had a hot bath while brewing a pot of coffee, then headed back upstairs to read up on the day’s various destinations. This was also my quiet time to read and collect images from the prior day’s outings and write in my journal.
Most mornings, Sam and I arrived in the dining room just about the time that Charles, one of the estate’s English owners, was bringing the first hot coffee press to the table. While we sampled local breads, selections of fresh yogurts, fresh sliced fruit and juice and delicate pots of jams, the remainder of our jolly group arrived one by one. Each morning we appeared more relaxed, rejuvenated by the fresh Alpilles air that found its way through windows left wide open throughout the night.
Judith and Mardie were our designated drivers. Sam at 6’2” settled into the shotgun seat in Mardie’s rental car—a Renault compact diesel that Moreton and Mary Jane also frequented. I preferred the larger silver beast that Judith nicknamed “La grande voiture luxe qui fume” (the big expensive smoking car)—so named after its initial 50 mile run from Marseilles to St. Remy made with the emergency brake engaged.
In the hour following breakfast, final decisions were made about what to pack along in the way of books, cameras, journals, hats, umbrellas, sweaters, and such, and by 10 at the very latest we were on our way. Lunch each day was always at noon sharp, with reservations made ahead of time at restaurants that Moreton, a chef and cookbook author, had carefully researched. While breakfast was an “arrive when you are rested and ready for coffee” affair, we were only once late to a lunch reservation.
On the second night of our travels together, we had driven to St. Remy to dine at La Serre, a new and quite small restaurant with a rapidly growing reputation attributable to the excellent quality of the food and the personality of its drop-dead-handsome chef, Serge Gille-Naves. Serge, a vegetarian, had left a more prestigious restaurant in Paris to begin his own petit restaurant in Provence—a region of beef cheeks and red-white-and-blue chickens. “Why?” seven in our group asked? “Because here,” Serge replied, “I can grow my own vegetables and live a happy, peaceful life.” Sam had only one question—Where’s the beef and mashed potatoes?”
The evening was delicious, save for one mishap. A lose nail at the edge of Maudy’s chair led to a gash in her middle finger, much appreciated attention from Serge, and a trip back into St. Remy the following morning for stitches at a local clinic. For this reason, the group split up and Judith’s great French smoking car went ahead the ancient Greco-Roman ruins at Glanum on the edge of St. Remy. There along the roadside stands a triumphal arch from 10 BC that celebrates Caesar’s conquest of the Greeks and Gaul, and a mausoleum from around 30 BC.
Across the roadway, we strolled along a promenade within walking distance of the asylum where Van Gogh lived and painted in the final years of his life. In this quiet setting, the olive trees and dark hut in a field at the edge of the Alpilles foothills seem unchanged from the scene captured plein air by Van Gogh in July 1889.
Back in the great French smoking car, Judith headed across the Rhone at Tarascon and drove beyond Uzes to the perched village of St. Quentin du Potèrie. Our destination was two-fold. First, an intimate lunch at La table d’Horlage, where we were served a most incredible multi-course lunch prepared by Chef Thibau Peyroche d’Arnaud and his wife Anne. When the second car arrived an hour late, we filled our friends in on the first two courses, ordered more wine, and still there were three more courses to come before we strolled down the hill to explore local pottery shops tucked within the village’s narrow lanes.
By 4 p.m., we were on our way to the Gardon valley near Uzes for a late afternoon stroll on the Pont du Gard—another story for another day.
