The town of St Remy-de-Provence, mid way between Arle and Avignon, is a wonderfully central location from which to explore Provence and the South of France. It's also a town fiercely proud and protective of its Provencal way of life, to the extent of refusing to let any chain store or franchise set up in town, so that all accomodation, dining etc is authentically local! Great move!
We also had St Remy highly recommended as our Provence base because of the great accomodation here at Les Sources owned by Avern and Jeanclaire. Smart, standalone, self contained units with fresh and modern French inspired decor nestle comfortably into manicured leafy grounds. They're well laid out and equipped and our hosts have been very helpful - even washing and drying the mountain of laundry we'd acculmulated over the last week.
Saturday was a "housekeeping" day. Checking and dealing with emails, (great wifi connection here!) bank balances and blog entries, before taking a walk into St Remy to orientate ourselves and check out the supermarket. The town was buzzing with Saturday morning activity - wonderful pastisserries filling the streets with irresistably delicious smells, vege shops brimming with fresh produce from tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, lettuces, radishes etc to fresh dates, figs, cherries and strawberries. The butcher shops are fascinating to visit with fresh slabs and cuts, a fascinating array of value added products from stuffed fresh rabbit, bacon wrapped quail, to iffy looking sausages, while their ready to eat products such as hams, proscuittos, roast pork and even potato and cous cous salads sit right alongside the fresh products. A wedding ceremony was just completing as we walked past the church and it seems that part of the tradition is to load the bridal party into the cars after the ceremony and wend through the crowded streets with horns blasting!
We took on the task of providing for lunch, so went with the French bread stick, cheese and salami idea. Two different bread sticks and then a big mission at the deli with a totally French speaking deli assistant who tried to "explain" the various bries, blues and goudas we asked about. She was so wonderfully happy to try to help and we were very happy with our purchases on consumption!
After lunch Fred and I drove through to Varascon, the nearest train station, to book our seats to Spain. We had the dates and destination written down and the French phrase book at the ready, but the young woman here was very helpful with enough English to make things work, so the job was done very easily. We'd got familiar with a few Italian words and phrases to help us get by in Italy, but of course now we're doing a crash course on trying to get the odd French word or two to roll easily off the tongue (none too easily yet, though I'm good at "bonjour" and "merci" and even "merci beaucoup" and today threw in the occasional "voila".
We decided a BBQ at home would be nice, so off to the Supermarket again for ratatouille veges and NZ lamb chops which were by far the best value meat buy!! Avern's BBQ was a bit of a dead loss, but we got there in the end and it was nice to just be relaxed at home making plans for the next day. The wine selection here is amazing and the prices just riciculously cheap! So many Roses here and we've had a couple of beautiful Cabernet Sauvignons as well as a Voignier which was similar to what we're used to and much enjoyed, a light delicate Sauvignan Blanc and even a ver scrumptious dessert wine.
Today Sunday saw us on the go early heading for Arles in a howling Mistral. This cold, furious wind (named after the poet Frederic Mistral who wrote in the native Provencal Language and won a Nobel Prize) howls across the flat countryside lashing crops of wheat, sunflowers and more, and leaving even the trademark avenues of big old Plane Trees with a windswept lean.
Arles is a really great place to visit. As soon as you arrive, the huge amount of Roman history here is apparent and yet, in comparison to trying to take in history in Rome, the compact scale, great preservation and excellent services for visitors here in Arles (everything from clear road signs to great restoration projects, tourist information and packages) seems to make it so much easier to deal with.We really enjoyed our visit to the partially restored Amphitheatre where, to this day, they hold bull events (not fight to the death). The Roman Theatre is wonderful and once again,currently used for shows! There are also Roman baths and the inspiring St Triophimes Cloister of Arles.
After lunch we headed further South across the delta formed by the mouth of the big, wide Rhone River to Carmague. This is vastly different countryside; still flat, but now often marshy (sometimes rice growing) with a Spanish influence; white horses, cowboys, bull events and a haven for a huge variety of seabisrds including flamingo who winter over here. If we'd stayed till 4.30 we could have watched a bull "fight" but our next destination called.
Drivng North again we entered limestone country with massive outcrops and cliffs towering above plunging valleys. Last on our visit list was Les Baux-de-Provence a tiny perched village centred around the Chateau de Baux thought to date from around the 10th Century. The village is very quaint with delightful shops plus a couple of churches. The smaller church has really lovely painted murals depicting Provencal shepherds looking after their sheep then involved in the Christmas story. But the big ticket item is the Chateau. Once you've paid the eight Euro entrance there is a free audio guide explaining the excellent displays and a fantastic video flying over the towns and countryside of Provence. Views from high up in the chateau are awesome over the valleys below and the breathtaking olive groves, vineyards and orchards. Olive growing in this region is very highly regarded and while France cannot compete with the quantity produced by big olive oil producing countries they work very hard on making a niche in the market with quality.
If anything, the wind velocity increased while we were here making our walk high up in the ruins of the Chateau even more overwhelming by roaring around and beating on the rocks and crumbling walls.
To top the lot, as we drove home we say flamingoes! So what a day of amazing variety which I guess must sum up this extraordinary place.
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Lovely! And go the All Whites!
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