Travels in France

  We left Marseille on Thursday on a local train up to Orange, a city of 30,000 souls. We thought this would be a bit more manageable and we were right. Also, this would be be a good place to rent a car and not have to drive through a busy city. 

   There’s a huge ancient Roman theatre in Orange which brings in the tourists. It was built in the first century and held 10,000. The barbarians chased the Romans out in the fourth century. The theatre was too big to destroy even for barbarians, so they smashed or burned what they could and moved on. In later centuries people built houses inside the theatre. 

   When Louis XIV took over this part of France, he destroyed the fort on the hill and was about to destroy the theatre until he saw a drawing of it and decided to keep it for his own glory. By the nineteenth century the French woke up to what they had and restored the place and started holding performances there. Even the Rolling Stone have rocked the ancient stones. 

   We spent four days in Orange visiting the sights and relaxing. On Sunday we went to mass in the ancient cathedral whose bells we had been hearing tolling the hours. There were 14 altar boys and almost as many altar girls, though Teresa noted only the boys went up on the altar. France is a traditional country. 

   We took the train twenty minutes south to Avignon, a city twice the size of Orange. Avignon is famous as the place where the popes, seven of them, lived in the 1300s. Things had gotten dangerous in Rome so the Church bought the city of Avignon and built a palace, really a fortress, for the pope. The cardinals followed and built palaces of their own. The popes left in 1377 but there is still an Italian feel to the place. The street signs are in both French and Italian, and on this Sunday there was a big Italian market with whole roasted pigs and great wheels of cheese. 

   The popes wanted a bridge across the Rhône River and they had the money to pay for it. This was a tremendous technical operation for the time. The bridge made it easy for the cardinals to get to their palaces across the river. According to Dante who visited, Avignon was the worst smelling city in Europe. 

   We caught our train back to Orange and packed our bags. Next morning we walked a mile to a car rental place and got a little Citroen C3. We drove back to the hotel, picked up our bags and headed for Vaison-la-Romaine. The main reason I wanted a SIM card for my phone was so we’d be able to use Google Maps. We were only going 15 miles and I had a rough idea which roads we would take, but as soon as we left the hotel, Google started throwing curve balls. It sent us the opposite way of the correct direction and then started sending us down narrow back roads. Fortunately traffic was light and we pulled over and had a talk with Google. Oh well, it was a nice day for a drive and no one beeped, though they did whip by us even when we were going the speed limit. 

   Arriving in Vaison-la-Romaine, we pulled over and checked out Airbnbs. We booked one for three nights and headed north of town one kilometer. The owner opened an electric gate so we could drive into the yard then handed me a fob so we could get in and out. “Please close the gate after you,” he said, “or the chickens will escape.” 

   He gave a tour of the place. It looked brand new and the patio had a view of his gardens and the mountains to the west. We booked it for three additional nights. 

  Next morning was the weekly market. On sale was everything from mattresses and phone cases to brightly glazed Provençal pottery, clothing, cheese, fish, fruit and vegetables, and much more. We helped make it worth the sellers’ while. 

  The first couple of days we explored the town. Across the ancient Roman bridge is the Medieval City atop a high rock where the locals retreated when the barbarians were on the rampage. A network of stony winding paths leads between the houses to the derelict chateau. There are several artists’ workshops in these buildings and we found some souvenirs before retreating to our patio. 

   I liked that there was a big free parking lot near the heart of the lower town where could leave the car while walking around. After checking out the main town, we drove east through a beautiful valley below mighty Mt. Ventoux. On the opposite side of the valley perched a series of small villages. 

   Teresa heard of an art walk in the woods outside Savoillans. In the parking lot there was a step-van with its side open. This was the itinerant grocery truck that makes the rounds of the villages that lack grocery stores. The truck belonged to a woman from Belfast who sold us some olives and advised to buy some bread at the local boulangerie. She didn’t know about the art trail. 

   There looked to be a trail behind the parking lot and we started up it. We soon met a woman with a box of paints. Yes, this was the art trail. “Go up, go up. But don’t kiss my Esmeralda, I just touched up her lips.” I asked about her Led Zeppelin shirt. “We are all old trippies,” she said. 

  So up we went. All the installations celebrated La Grande Nature. Some were quite intriguing, especially one between two ancient stone walls. A long series of river reeds (roseau) we’re suspended at eye level by filament. On one end was a pine cone to offset the plume and the balance was fixed by acorns slid along the shaft. The whole affair ran down the steep hill under the trees and the reeds responded together to each shift in the breeze. 

  Back in the village we found a little restaurant for lunch. The owner was French and was one of the few people we met who knew about Minnesota because she had once been an au pair in Des Moines. Her husband who also worked in the restaurant was Dutch. Just then a couple came onto the patio. The owner asked if they spoke French or English. “Dutch,” they said. “Martin!” she called to her husband.  One must be prepared for anything in the restaurant business.