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We drove all the way to Southern France with Eros Ramazotti in the background...

Provence 1993

Gaby
2004-01-25 13:10:26

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We drove all the way to Southern France with Eros Ramazotti in the background.

Gordes

We spent some time in the Vasarély museum in Gordes (Krista tells me that the museum is closed these days).

Scorpio rising

We stayed in a "Mas", a secluded big house with a swimming pool and all the fixings you would expect in a hotel, in the middle of the fields in the village of Roussillon, Luberon, Provence.

After a pastis outside in the garden we went for a short walk. The long drive had worn us out. Wedidn't do much more that day. In the evening we had a sumptuous meal with lashings of garlic and olive oil and plenty of the local rosé.

The owner of the Mas was a snooty Parisian with a weird sense of humour. The bedrooms were clean and pleasant, mine was at ground level, next to the field. In the morning I found a small, black scorpion next to my bed. I told the owner during breakfast and asked him if they were dangerous. He didn't say yes or no, but thought it was all very funny and made fun of me every time he saw me.

I had enough of this behaviour and insisted on another room. After some discussion he agreed. The new room had a bath tub instead of a shower. "Ah", I thought, "that is nice. He wants to make up by giving me a better room." Then he went into the bathroom, picked up the bath tub plug and put it in his pocket. No chance of a bath for me.

Le Marquis de Sade

One day we drove to Lacoste, which used to be a hangout of the infamous Marquis de Sade. The ruins of one of his castles was being restored there by one of his descendants. We had a look around.

It was quite a climb to get up there and quite a climb down - or you could do as I did and just fall off the steps. You can't expect to visit the Marquis and come away without hurting yourself.

The place had its own quarry nearby where the stone for the restoration was excavated. The vegetation in the area was covered with little snails.

We found a small restaurant with tables outside under a roof of tree leaves and branches, with pots of basil and a lazy pussycat in a chair. We spent most of the day walking around Lacoste.

In the evening we went to a restaurant dedicated to the wicked Marquis, where maybe he used to come himself for a sorbet au lavande.

La danse des canards

We spent one night in Canet, but fled early in the morning, away from the noise, the Hawaiian shirts and the smell of cremated hamburgers. After one night we had already had our overdose of "la Danse des Canards" - we could just as well have stayed on the worst parts of the Belgian coast.

Time of the gypsies

No, then we much preferred Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer, Mecca of gypsies, the centre of the Camargue and a busy a seaside town.

We also had a great time in Vaison-la-Romaine with its medieval town center high up in the mountains. And then there were the Fontaines de Vaucluse, with the wonderful blue green waters and the wonderful green yellow pastis.