Le chien Provençal

Le chien Provençal is a veteran frequenter of sidewalk cafés ... accustomed to eyeing the action from underneath the tables with eager interest, or perhaps a look of disdainful boredom ...

He understands that the village fountain is a good place to cool down on a hot summer's day, or have a drink, but never pee  ...

Le chien provencal is a seasoned brocanteur, and knows how useful he can be  for sniffing out the bargains ...

 ... guarding the goods ...

... and even manning the stalls ...

If left at home, on the other hand, le chien Provençal will make himself useful by guarding the village house ...

... while le patron of the village shop can rest assured that le chien will oversee the threshold, looking suitably intimidating ...

(Quel adorable! How could you not love this face?)

And what can be said of le chat Provençal? ...

For heaven's sake, don't tap on the window - you'll wake him up!

Brocante-ing in the south of France

The south of France in the summer is practically synonymous with brocantes, the French version of antique and flea market rolled into one, something I'd really looked forward to ....  the only problem, as I quickly discovered, is getting there - often after driving some distance - before the heaving August crowds descend and it becomes a struggle to park or even move around.

So when a brocante/vide grenier was advertised in our little village of Goult on a Saturday morning, I was thrilled - all I had to do was roll out of bed and walk down the street.

I was in the village square as the church bells were striking 7 am ... in the Place de la Libération (there's one in every single French village it would seem) and extending into all the side streets and alleyways, stall holders were setting up their tables ...

... silverware being laid out on linen-covered tables, a beautiful Provençal boutis casually tossed in a heap on a bush, furniture being unpacked from vans, house wares - some good pieces amongst some junk ...

With only a few customers about at this hour, it was clear that the early birds were going to get the worms ...

... and for this early bird, that meant making a bee-line for the old French linens - monogrammed sheets, pillowcases, table cloths and serviettes, once part of a 19th century bride's trousseau, these have lasted for generations, getting softer with every wash.

Pure linen, rough hemp, or metis (cotton and linen mix) - it was in suitcases, plastic crates, slung over bushes ...

This lady (below, with her husband helping her lay out her linens from crates in the car) had the best selection and became my new best friend. A moment of panic set in when a dealer arrived, a glint in her eye, and started scooping up goods (no you don't, I wanted that!), and I understood why the first rule of the brocante is 'get there early'.

Mission accomplished, feeling good about the small stack of linens at bargain prices now safely in my basket, I could enjoy wandering around the streets, poking about for interesting items, fantasising about how well one could furnish an entire village house with brocante finds...

This is clearly a social affair in France, a weekend hobby, a place for convivial chat with neighbours, for a little polite bargaining, and the fun of hunting for something unique or special. Everywhere I heard people wishing each other at the end of a bit of chat "bon weekend et bonne chine" (chiner - antique bargain hunting) ...

I loved the random and unexpected mix of professional dealers with good quality antiques and individuals selling  their second-hand cast-offs (vide grenier - empty attic) ...

... an old suitcase of nostalgia (feeding the French Johnny Hallyday obsession)  shares space with zinc roosters, Provençal santons (nativity figures) and handwoven tapestries ... and at one stall a man had chaotic stacks and piles of old books and handwritten documents ...

 

These two gents, seasoned brocanteurs, had settled themselves for the morning with comfortable chairs and newspapers, their paintings stacked up against the wall of Goult's 12th century church ...

... perhaps later on they'd enjoy a little companionable pastis in the sunshine?

Summer eating in Provence

Think aioli, bouillabaisse, loup, pistou, gigot d'agneau, ratatouille, tapenade ... and you have Provençal food, known and prepared all over the world. But in Provence it all starts with the open-air food marchés found in every town and village ... these are the stars, the highlight of the food realm.

Here are a few tiny glimpses of the overwhelming variety of fresh, sun-grown and locally-made produce at the Wednesday marché in one of the loveliest of towns in this region - St Remy de Provence - spreading out from the central town square in front of the Mairie ...

It's a full sensory experience, a riot of colours and smells and textures ...

It's art, social event, entertainment and an education all of its own ...

Take it home and enjoy it en famille ...

... or go out and discover what local chefs do with their homegrown bounty ...

Clockwise from top left, a few places we ate fabulously well:  Brasserie les Variétés and Bistrot Découverte - 19 and 32 Boulevard Victor Hugo, 13210 St Rémy de Provence, Du Pain sur la Planche - Route de Cavaillon 84660 Coustellet/Maubec, Les Cuisines du Chateau - Au Pied du Chateau, 84220 Gordes.

Outdoor tables in Lourmarin, Goult, Bonnieux

The chalk blackboard - l'ardoise - is everywhere, because what the chef vous propose aujourd'hui may almost certainly be different demain, depending on what struck his or her fancy at the marché that day.

Bon appetit!

Seduced by Provence

A week in Provence is enough to seduce one, and to understand why painters like van Gogh, Cezanne, Renoir, Matisse and Picasso came here for the intense colours, brilliant sunshine and quality of life. 

This post is a mélange, a medley, of some of my favourite scenes of villages in the Luberon region ...  

Many old settlements in this region were originally built as fortified villages high up on rocky hilltops - the villages perchés - for the strategic vantage point they gave. They had castles and fortifications and narrow entrances.

In our own village of Goult, above and below - stone archways and ramparts and the ornately carved entrance to the gardens of the castle that tops the village. The pic below right shows the castle walls rising seamlessly from the natural rock below.

Day to day life could not have been easy in these villages - imagine the difficulties of getting water and basic amenities up to those heights - but today we can appreciate the fantastic views of surrounding countryside and the still preserved medieval houses in steep, winding, narrow stone streets.

This high-up window (below right) of a huge room in the castle (now a chateau available for rent - imagine that!) caught my fancy - it must have fabulous views across the valley ...

This is Gordes, glowing below on its hilltop perch on a summer evening last week. Gordes has an impressive 2000 year history. Like Goult, it's topped by a church and castle - the twin symbols of protection against enemies, though as recently as World War II it suffered badly, with a large part of the village being destroyed and the population massacred. The whole village was awarded the Croix de Guerre medal. 

Lately it's been a favourite destination for film directors, artists (a 16th century chateau houses a large art collection) and Parisiens (Mitterand famously had a summer home here for his mistress Anne Pingeot). Below is the hotel La Renaissance in front of the chateau, where many scenes from A Good Year were filmed ...

Ménerbes (below), another village perché, has the dubious blessing of being the village Peter Mayle chose to live in and write his first best-seller about Provence life ...

And not too far away, this is the view from the fortified village of Bonnieux over orchards, vineyards and a forest of cedars ...

... and a side view, below, of the fortified ramparts against attackers in the Middle Ages. This place was a stronghold for the Knights Templar for a long time ...

While Gordes and Ménerbes were gorgeous but perhaps just a tad too staged or like film-sets, Bonnieux seemed to have a local life of its own. I got side-tracked (stopped dead in my tracks and drawn inside like a magnet, I mean) by the antique shops (I loved this carved bed-head leaning against a centuries-old stone wall, below) ...

... and by the numbers of restaurants and cafés, each one more inviting than the one before (we ended up choosing Le Fournil, below right, for lunch on the cobbled terrace surrounding an old fountain, and did not regret it). In Bonnieux we also came across a man with an extraordinary collection of vintage French film posters and memorabilia, which he was selling in a tiny, chaotic shop.

Could Lourmarin be the prettiest of them all? Not a perched village, but down at the foot of the Luberon mountain, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves, it's officially designated one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France ...

Camus lived here, and this (below) is his very unassuming grave in the local churchyard. He died (appropriately for an absurdist/existentialist, non?) in a random car crash while driving from Lourmarin to Paris ...

There isn't a street or alleyway here that's not picture-perfect or full of intriguing doorways and tiny shops ...

or outdoor cafés ...

But my favourite sight was in the lane outside La Boutique de l'Antiquaire (owned by Corey's friend Nathalie of La Madone - another fabulous place to stay in Provence) ... a table set for one in front of a vintage Citroen deux chevaux ...

Doesn't this capture French Provençal style?