Our Grand Tour of Europe

The Luberon Comes to Life

Our Luberon valley has burst into color as it awakens to spring. We marvel at the daily changes in the landscape around us. Three weeks ago we saw the long-awaited first blooms on our almond trees. Then last weekend the cherry trees began their show. Cherries are a major crop in the area around Apt, and we’re surrounded by orchards… perfectly straight rows of trees, pruned identically, each one covered with plump white blossoms. We pass thousands of these shimmering trees on our eight-minute drive to and from Kelly’s school.

In many of the vineyards tiny yellow dandelions cover the ground beneath the vines. I’ve always thought of dandelions as weeds, but here in this land of color, they’re beautiful wildflowers. Other vineyards and many orchards are dotted with lacy white flowers… I don’t know what they are, but in mass they’re just beautiful. This morning I took a long walk through the fields around La Bastide Vieille. There are at least fifteen different varieties of tiny colorful wildflowers, including hundreds of tiny grape hyacinths popping up simply everywhere. At home I buy these little purple flowers through a mail order catalog and plant the bulbs in my yard. But in Provence they grow in abundance, practically everywhere. I picked a nosegay of flowers and arranged them in a cream pitcher in our dining room.

On Thursday we saw our first poppies, happy red flowers on the side of the road. The rosemary bushes around our house sport tiny purple flowers, a hint of the spectacle we’ll miss when fields of lavender take center stage this summer. There are hundreds of irises on the grounds of La Bastide; the plants that get the most sun are sending up their stalks, and I see the purple flowers preparing to bloom. I had been desperate to see the cherry trees before we left… now I just want to see the irises—hopefully lots of them—before Friday.

As we admire the countryside from our vantage point on this hillside, it’s as if I’m watching an artist creating a great work of art, each day adding more colors to the canvas. I wake each morning eager to see what new surprise I’ll discover in the painting today. Despite the lack of rain this spring, the fields have turned a vibrant green, surrounded by the beautiful white orchards and the still-dormant vines, blanketed with the yellow dandelions, and then topped by that bright blue sky. It’s absolutely lovely, breathtaking. At times I feel close to tears—at the simple beauty that is Provence, at the thought of leaving this wonderful place… especially now, when the Luberon is coming to life.

I’ll Miss You, Provence
by Kelly

I’ll miss--

Bonnieux the village I’ve come to love,
Lacoste, you too, the castle far above.

Apt-- the town we shopped for food, and markets on Saturdays,
Our house, La Bastide Vieille, in all the yellow sunrays.

All the people we’ve met here: Michel, Madame Gouin and Mariette, Gerard and Annie too.
The Thompsons, Widrows, and Jenkins-- our friends true.

The school I attended and all my friends who are French,
Chico my black cat who meows in Span-ish.

Unfortunately our time here is at an end,
But Provence, we will meet again.

Au Revoir Provence
by Charley

Tomorrow we’ll be leaving Provence. When our family came to this part of France six and one-half months ago, our departure was so far in the future that it seemed that we had more than enough time to properly “do” Provence. Plenty of time to see everything and experience all it had to offer. Then we would close this chapter of our grand tour and move on to the finale.

We’d initially included Provence as a place to spend the winter since it was in the south of the country and was famous for its mild winter weather. A second visit would also give us the chance to see a few things we hadn’t the time for in 2003.

Well, time passes in Provence as it does everywhere. Our six and one-half month stay is almost at an end and our departure date looms as a dreaded square on our calendar. We’re almost devastated at the thought of having to leave a place that has come to feel like home.

Somewhere along the way our attitudes and feelings have changed. We had come from a supercharged 24/7 American culture where everything is scheduled and life rushes along its course like some product speeding relentlessly along a production line. Everything seemed to have a starting point, a finish, but no stops along the way.

We’ve learned that Provence is not just a place. It’s a different way of seeing and thinking about things. After the initial dose of culture shock, we found it very easy to fall into the languid flow of Provençal life and time. Why some particular thing or event at home in America was so important got a little fuzzy here. Schedules, plans, needs, and habits changed. Rushing from one thing to another no longer had precedence in our lives.

A slow early morning drive along narrow country lanes became important, a simple trip into our village to buy warm baguettes and croissants from the boulangerie. Often I would pull to the side of the road to watch as the sun rose over Bonnieux on its mountain perch. I sat in awe as the suns rays successively painted gold on the tops of ancient buildings, stone walls, olive trees, grape vines, and then the land itself. It dawned on me that I was looking at essentially the same view that captivated Caesar and then, Charlemagne. I could have been standing in the very spot where a crusader bid farewell before starting for the Holy land. The Avignon Popes spent their summers in the relative cool of Bonnieux. They too could have enjoyed the same view several centuries earlier.

Provence is an ancient land. Evidence if its long history dots the landscape in the form of Roman bridges, medieval castles, ancient churches and monasteries and the unique Provencal bories, stone shepherds huts that litter the countryside by the hundreds. The procession of history through this wonderful place, with both its notables and its unknowns, provides a legendary backdrop to what is perhaps Provence’s greatest gift. It’s a subtle but lovely gift, one that I can take away with me- the spirit and essence of a place suspended in time. The pace of life here is slow. The pace of change is even slower, hard to measure. The people are warm, the land rich and beautiful , the sky impossibly blue. Provence requires a change in gears. It lets one slow down, enjoy life, appreciate family, and be content with oneself.