Month: March 2019

This beautiful wisteria  is in the courtyard we drive from every day as we leave our villa.  It gets more full and sweeter smelling every day.

Somehow we have neglected Apt in our travels to Provence so we remedied that omission and headed to the Apt Provencal market.  Again, we had beautiful weather and our hour long trip was lovely–we drove (too fast for photos) along the Alpilles for awhile and on some very small chemins with plowed fields separated by rows of tall cypress trees, along the beautiful blue Durance River, passed espaliered apple and other fruit trees and two pastured white Carmargue horses.  Our view changed a bit as we drove in the valley between Vaucluse Mountains on our left and Luberon Mountains on our right. Here the fruit orchards were larger and more varied–cherry, apple and probably peach trees all blooming; and there were more and more vineyards as we approached Apt.

The city is the center of government for the Luberon region and is lively and typical of the villages in Provence–ocher plastered buildings on small cobblestone alleys.  The market was typical too and big–winding through the small alleys and filling squares.

Allan enjoyed smelling the many different soaps sold in the market and Clay enjoyed eating as many salty oysters as he could!  After wandering the market we had lunch at Mona Lisa cafe, walked to the fruit confit (candied fruit) store, JC Rouset and drove home.

What a perfect day!  Clear and cool when we woke and warming when we left the villa for the market at Eygalieres–my second favorite market, right behind St. Remy. On the way here from St. Remy we had beautiful views of the Alpilles, with olive groves, green valleys and vineyards and occasional restored villas.  The town is perched on the summit of a small hill.  The market begins as the very base of the hill and and continues through the streets to the right and the left as well as up toward the summit of the hill.

Both the market and the town are colorful, quiet and lovely.  Buildings are typically made of stone with flowers softening the facade–wisteria is gorgeous here at this time of year.  I have only seen round zucchini (courgettes ronde) here in Provence.

We tasted several sausages and chose the one with fig to bring home.  Also purchased beautiful material and a tablecloth to fit our card tables.  After we had been through the market we had some time before our lunch reservation so we stopped at one of our favorite wineries.

Chateau Romanin is just outside of San Remy.  Its wine cellar is built into a mountain and its back wall is the mountain.  Architecturally the cellar resembles a cathedral.  In short the winery is quite special.  According to perfectlyprovence.com  this is a place where wine, religion and mysticism have intersected for centuries. It has a colorful history; the estate has been occupied at any one time by Greeks, Gauls, Romans, Moors and templars.  The 13th century ruined castle was last inhabited by templars.  The present owners built the current winery in the 1980s and continue many of the practices used in ancient times, in today’s terms biodynamics and agronomy.  They pick the grapes by hand  use the sun and the moon to guide their viniculture decisions, using only manure and plant/mineral-based preparations–no herbicides or other chemicals.  And they use agronomic techniques that allow the wine to express its terroir.  It is a modern winery that respects its history, the environment and the wine itself.

We bought some wine here and headed to our 1PM reservation at Oustau de Baumaniere.  Nestled below the rock formations of Les Baux, this Michelin 2 star restaurant is fabulous.

This final photo is of dessert.  The presentation of the thinly sliced and candied orange, lemon, and grapefruit slices paired with the dessert with similar flavors was typical of the entire meal. We sat outside on the patio and feasted on at least 7 courses from 1 to 5.  It was amazing and we counted it as both lunch and dinner.  Filled with people watching, bird watching, great conversation with great friends, it was a gastronomical delight!

 

The Aix market is large and Provencal–sells everything!  We walked down Cours de Mirabeau, the main street there, in the beautiful spring weather where the clothing part of the market stretched for blocks.  Clay bought a fine panama hat and he and Allan tasted and bought sardines.

After lunch we walked through the old town and about 30 minutes up Avenue Paul Cezanne to his atelier near the top of a steep hill.  He bought a 7000 square meter piece of property for 2000 franks with his inheritance from his mother and built this home and studio.  At the time it was built, the property was unused fields from farming.  Now it is a wood of native plants and trees filled with birdsong.  The interior of the atelier is quite large with a tremendous north facing window, no east and west windows and the ability to shutter the south windows for the perfect light.  The floor is a soft natural wood

instead of the bright terra cotta floors in the rest of the house and the walls are painted a color that he chose–a perfect background of mostly gray blue.  On shelves along the wall are displayed all of the bottles, vases, skulls and other items he used in his many still life paintings.  We could not see Montagne Sainte-Victoire, which he painted over sixty times.  He walked up the hill a bit further with his easel to have the view we see in his series of oil paintings. Seeing this beautiful property and atelier was well worth the hike.

We ubered to the car and returned to St. Remy for an “every person for him/her self” dinner at the villa and turned in early.

Almost every village in Provence has a market day. Some are provencal markets with prepared foods and produce as well as provencal goods like linens, clothing, and lavender. Others are only farmer’s produce markets.

This morning we enjoyed the Saint Remy market.  The entire market wraps around the square at the Hotel de Ville (city government), winds through the small streets and expands to the parking lot across the street.  First, we checked out the whole scene. Then, we revisited our favorite spots–Allan bought green olives in chopped garlic, visited with”the duck guy” and bought a can of duck confit for four that “the duck guy” had preserved.  I visited with Frank, “the watercolor painter” but will wait to purchase.  And, of course, we had a mission.  Clay has an excellent recipe for oyster stew and our mission was to secure all of the ingredients.  Clay visited “his oyster guy” who shucked him four dozen oysters; Connie found celery and onions; Allan and I found milk and parsley.  Clay brought pastis  in a small bottle from home and he and Connie went to the InterMarche (big grocery store) for flour.

After the market, we relaxed, read, napped and enjoyed our lovely villa with the birds singing through the open windows.

Allan and I had a late lunch across the street at Le Bistro des Alpilles and returned to the villa for Allan to help Clay prepare the Oyster Stew which was delicious!  Our feast tonight also included artichokes and a lovely bottle of Clos de Calliou wine.

Chef Claude’s quote for the day: “the parsley on oyster stew is like the nutmeg on milk punch”

 

 

I woke to the mistral roaring again this morning and walked down from the third floor  (elevator is still broken) to see our pine trees dancing in the wind.  A still photo can’t capture the movement but the winds blow in long and short gusts and cause these big trees to sway and bend like tall, graceful ballerinas.

 

Our ultimate goal today was to visit Le Clos du Caillou Winery.  In case you are wondering a “clos” is a walled enclosure and this winery is surrounded by a 3 foot stone wall.  To keep from arriving while the proprietors were at lunch, we decided to detour to the small town of Châteauneuf-du-Pape–somewhere near the center of the wine region with the same name.  This region has some of the highest quality and most expensive wines in Provence, largely due to the favorable terroir.  For those of you unfamiliar with this term, terroir encompasses important natural conditions including: the soil, altitude, elevation, exposure to the sun, temperature range, access to water, trees, types of rock on top of the soil as well as in the soil and microclimate for each vineyard.  One of the rules of the AOC (see below) is that modification of the natural terroir is very tightly controlled since the quality and appeal of wine is based on the vineyard’s terroir.  Rocky soil as a terroir component yields some of the best grapes because the vines roots have to grow strong and deep to survive, the rocky soil provides needed drainage and the rocks on the surface hold the strong sunlight to warm the vines at night.

The Appellation d’Origine Controlee (AOC) system regulates food (including cheese), wine and other agricultural products (like olives), manages strict, specific appellation characteristics that help to guide the consumer, promotes minimum levels of quality and energizes growers into producing better wines. In accordance with the AOC, a vineyard in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape region can only grow 18 different grapes. Most Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines are red blends dominated by Grenache.

Sorry to carry on about terroir and AOC but these are two French concepts that are very important to the quality of their agricultural products.  Anyway, we were hungry and it was about lunchtime so we went to Le Verger des Papes, a restaurant Clay knew with a view of the Rhone valley–we could actually see the castle at Avignon.  As in all good French restaurants a three course meal is perfectly proportioned.  I had the special which was a pate of zucchini, sliced duck breast with potatoes and a dessert with strawberries covered in mascarpone whipped cream and topped with strawberry sorbet. And, of course we shared a bottle of wine.

The views from this restaurant were spectacular.  Counterclockwise from the left are Allan and the Alpilles Mountains, the Rhone River and Avignon, the Rhone River Valley and me in the restaurant courtyard below the remains of the castle at Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The castle was destroyed during the war by the Allies because the Germans were storing ammunition there.

After lunch, Clay drove us along small back roads, through rolling vineyards, and cherry orchards in bloom to his favorite winery in Provence, Le Clos du Calliou.  Franciose, who
speaks only French, was behind the counter and guided us through the tasting of wines from the region.  Clay chose two of our favorites and we bought some to enjoy for happy hour at the villa.

We loaded the wine into the car and because it was relatively early, took off for Vaison-La-Romaine.  The medieval city, high on a cliff on the banks of the river Ouvèz, has been inhabited since the Bronze Age in the fourth century BCE. At that time a Celtic tribe, the Vocontii or Voconces called the village home. The city, of course, has been pillaged and plundered by many over time and now is maintained for tourists interested in Roman civilizations.  After crossing a bridge from the 1st century AD, we didn’t get too far in our visit since the climb was so steep.  The clock tower sits on the old city wall and is a good landmark to identify Vaison. We returned across the bridge to our car and after adjusting the GPS system, Clay drove us home.  Dinner was “eat what is here” and we all had different light meals, visited for an hour or so and called it a night. BTW, the mistral blew itself out of St. Remy about 9:00 PM.

The mistral has arrived in St. Remy.  It is a cold northwesterly wind that accelerates as it passes through the Rhone Valley on its way to the Gulf of Lion in the Mediterranean.  We have had 20-30 mph winds all of today and expect the same tomorrow.  As I write this, the wind is blowing across the chimney I’m sitting in front of and it sounds like a hurricane.

Our first stop on the way from St. Remy to Les Baux was Moulin Castelas (Huile D’Olive De La Valle Des Baux de Provence). Today, Domaine Castelas produces olives on 110 acres of Appellation d’Origine Protégée groves in the Vallée des Baux de Provence. We have been to this olive grove and mill (actually their excellent gift shop) every time we’ve come to Provence.

We felt the cold wind whenever we were outside but it was very strong up on the mountain where we walked around Les Baux. It took us about 10 cold minutes with the wind swirling around us to get to the Carriere de Lumiere event.  Always one of the highlights of our trip, this will not be the last time (even this week) that we see this amazing show.  Be sure to check out information on their website (click on the link above)–it’ll give you an idea of the size of this venue and the amazing show.  This year the show is titled Van Gogh, Starry Night.  Vincent Van Gogh painted more than 2000 paintings in the last ten years of his life. He is one of my favorite painters and I hope to be inspired, as he was, by the warm and bright colors of Provence. The digital immersion experience of paintings, projected onto the 15 meter high walls, floors and the ceiling of the limestone cave

are sometimes set to life (crows flying, water rippling, flower petals from almond trees floating in the breeze) by these amazing digital artists and are accompanied by different genres of music including Janis Joplin singing “Kozmic Blues”, several operas and classical concertos, and Nina Simone singing “Don’t let me be misunderstood.”

I nearly cried as the painting of his entry to the Asylum near Saint Remy appeared with the song that begins,”I’m just a man whose intentions are good.  Oh, Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.”  That song played while selected paintings that he completed during his time in St. Remy lit up the cave walls.  He was such a tortured soul and it certainly shows in his self portraits.  What a beautiful experience!

We left the limestone parking lot we found for the Van Gogh event and drove closer to the small medieval village of Les Baux–everything at Les Baux is either uphill or downhill but we have found lunch spots like Varieties (our spot for today) that we repeatedly enjoy.  And, a little shopping is always in order–Allan bought some soap for the shower, Connie found truffle powder, Clay purchased good balsamic vinegar, and I left with a very soft and tightly woven shawl (wore it all day)!`

Taking the long way home from St. Remy, we drove through nearby Mouries  (the leading olive oil producer in France) and twisted and turned on the loopy mountain roads of the national park between Les Baux and St. Remy. Our final stop for the day was at La Vallongue wine and olive estate.  This place, at the very foot of the Alpilles Mountains was quite manicured and well-kept with a full tasting room and gift shop.

We tasted a few of their featured wines and purchased a couple of bottles to share during cocktail hour.  Dinner was at home and we enjoyed the quiet company and lively conversation with the mistral roaring in the background.

Just another day in Paradise!

The countryside between Paris and Avignon that we had expected to see was blanketed, no, smothered in fog, only about 10-20 yards beyond the train tracks were visible for the first hour.   As soon as the sun was up and the day had begun, as it does in France, around 9…the fog cleared, the temperature seemed to immediately rise by 10 degrees and we could see–it was a beautiful train ride–green, very green fields, villages surrounding a church steeple reaching for the sky and small forests with early spring flowering trees.  Further along we observed a long row of huge still windmills waiting for the mistral winds and small herds of white cattle dotting the green fields.  In the villages the houses are made of light yellow ochre limestone and have terra-cotta roofs.  Against the green of the fields, it is a beautiful sight.

Connie rented a car in Avignon and Clay drove the four of us to our home for the next three weeks in Saint-Remy-de-Provence.   We are staying in a four bedroom, 5 bath villa with a two bedroom attached apartment, expansive grounds and a pool–but it is still too cool to swim. Allan and I are on the third floor and until Monday the elevator is broken so we get our exercise several times each day.

This first day and a half in Saint Remy we have rested in the perfect weather (42 at sunrise, rising to 75 by Noon, back down to 42 by sunset with 25% humidity), savored the daily baguette and morning Sacristains (almond pastry only available in St. Remy), and read with only the sound of birds singing and the smell of lavender just outside the door.

As  much as we are enjoying this peace and quiet, we expect to be over our jet lag and ready to roll tomorrow.  Bonsoir!!