Pastis and Poppies

"Because in the end, you won't remember the time you spent in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain." - Jack Kerouac 

We left the Cave of Forgotten Dreams and headed southeast, back into Provence. For the most part we stayed on small roads, avoiding the autoroute, in order to enjoy the small villages and beautiful scenery. We stopped in some lovely towns, including Pont d'Espirit and Venasque, the last being a nice hill village at the west end of the Luberon Valley. The view from our little ice cream shop was extraordinary. And the ice cream!  Where but in Provence can you have lavender ice cream?

Our destination was another hill town, Roussillon. This hill village is built on top of a long ridge composed of ochre, the fine red dirt that roof tiles are made out of. So the entire town is a beautiful red color, as all the houses are made of ochre. So between the red buildings, the green trees and the blue sky, you have quite a sight. It's a very popular place with day trippers, and when we arrived the town was REALLY crowded. It was quite difficult to drive our car through the crowds and small streets to our parking lot. Thank goodness we had our little Fiat 500!

We were in a three star hotel (we usually stick to two stars, but none were available), called Clos de la Glycine, which was quite nice. And the restaurant, Chez David, was nouvelle cuisine, as opposed to the bistrot food we usually have. For instance, the filet of sea bass had a foamy sauce around it, made out of who knows what. Our duck was delicious, but very small portions...one of the reasons I usually don't like nouvelle cuisine. But it was very good, the view from the restaurant to the red cliffs was magnificent, almost making the €37 price worth it.  Almost. 

The next day we left fairly early, just as the day trippers were showing up. Amy, in her great drive to find hiking paths with no one on them, found a wonderful path through some beautiful red rocks. We then drove to the nearby village of Bonnieux, passing a Roman bridge on the way. From Bonnieux you have an amazing view of the valley if you walk way, way up to the top of town. We met a man named Vincent, who makes beautiful Santons, dolls of the local villagers. 

From here we went on to our final destination of Nice, a long three hour drive. But on the way we had a picnic by a small creek and passed bright red fields of coquelicots, the French poppy. A very nice way to say goodbye to France.

This adventure took us to many places, where we met wonderful local people who were always willing to share their culture with us.   We saw two fantastic festivals, very different from each other, but both showing the life and culture of their people.  France will always have a special place in my heart, but it was Corsica that surprised both of us the most.  The landscape, the food, the tiny difficult roads and most of all the people.  We will return, for sure.  A bientôt la Douce France!

The Cave of Forgotten Dreams

"Life is measured not by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away”….Anonymous

In 1994, three French speleologists made one of the greatest discoveries of the century. They found a huge cave, hidden from human eyes for tens of thousands of years, in which, on the walls, were drawn extraordinary figures of wild animals; including lions, rhinoceroses, cave bears, owls, horses, deer and others. Many of these animals have long been extinct and at first scientists thought that the drawings were done contemporaneously with other caves in France, such as Lascaux, maybe 16,000 years ago or so. But as the scientists examined the cave, mostly through carbon dating, they found that this artwork was done around 35,000 years ago, making it the oldest cave art ever discovered, by a long shot. I'll repeat that:  THIRTY FIVE THOUSAND years ago!!

Right away, the French government closed the cave to all but a few specialists. We found out about it because the film director, Werner Herzog, did a great documentary about it, The Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Herzog and his film crew were allowed in the cave a couple of times and made a really good film. At the end of the film, Herzog said that the French government was planning on building a perfect replica so the public could see the cave. It took almost three years, but in 2015 the replica, Le Caverne de Pont d'Arc was opened to the public. 


The discoverers of the cave, Christian Hillaire, Jean Marie Chauvet and Eliette Brunelle...

The replica from above

An artists works on the replica...

The way you see the replica cave is on a guided tour, with groups of 20 leaving every 5 minutes. You have a headphone with a not so good translation of what the guide is talking about. The replica is amazingly done. The original cave was scanned with a 3D scanner, so it's all done in perfect detail. Not only the art was perfectly replicated, but the ceiling, walls, stalagmites, stalagmites and floor, containing cave bear skulls, footprints (including the oldest human footprint ever found) and other bones. 

The artwork itself is beautiful, what we would think of as a modern style, maybe because Picasso copied similar art for his paintings. And there is so much mystery to these people. What did they believe?  Why is there only one human figure in the whole cave?  Why did they do their art hidden away in a dark cave?  We will never know the answers. And there are not only animals depicted, but hundreds of human handprints, all done in red, the 'signatures' of the artists. In fact, because at least one of the handprints has a bent little finger and this same handprint appears in different areas of the cave, we can identify at least one artist from long ago. 

I can't really describe the art, its best just to see it. So here you go...

Horses...

Lions...

Bison...

Rhinoceroses...

An owl looking backwards, carved on the wall...

Handprints

We Hang Out With the Gypsies

    



"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain

For over 100 years, gypsies from all over Europe have been coming together in the small Mediterranean town of Saints Maries de la Mer to honor their patron saint, Sarah, and to celebrate the gypsy lifestyle. 

Saint Sarah's origins are a little unclear... the crypt of the church at Stes Maries holds a stone dedicated to Mithras, a Zoroastrian god of just decisions that the Romans adopted, and then also the site is dedicated to the Marys (magdalene and Salome) who found the empty tomb in Jerusalem and then were mysteriously set adrift on a boat from Alexandria Egypt to die but drifted to France instead.  Sarah might be their Egyptian servant or she might be the Frenchwoman who welcomed them ashore.  So... one story is the gypsies adopted her to prove they were truly Catholic... with a "we love strong women" twist. Or... because she has dark skin... it's felt she might represent the goddess Kali, as gypsies are originally from the Punjab.  We will just never know.  Anyway the gypsies have long congregated at Stes Maries and the local non gypsies have not always liked it and apparently about a hundred years ago they formalized her festival as possibly a way to focus and minimize the time gypsies showed up in town. 

But first...we drove from Sassari to the ferry, crossed to Corsica, hung out in Bonifacio for awhile and then drove up the coast to our ferry in Ajaccio, stopping along the way at Filitosa, a wonderful Stone Age site with carved caves, dolmens and a beautiful landscape. Lots of ancient history here in Corsica!

After our overnight ferry ride, we drove through the beautiful Provençal countryside, stopping at Mas de la Dame, a really good winery. We bought a couple of wines and then drove to Les Baux, an old hill town with a ruined castle. We had a nice hike to some huge bauxite mines, carved in the last century. We had a picnic of charcuterie, cheese, olives and bread amongst some olive trees with a gorgeous view of the countryside. We then drove to Arles, the town in which Vincent Van Gogh painted some of his most famous artwork, where we would stay the next three nights. 

Arles is a marvelous town, not too big and not many tourists after 5pm. There are lots of Roman buildings, still in use today, such as the big Amphitheater and Theater. We had a nice dinner of soupe de poisson, fois gras, and a fillet of rouget, a local fish. 

Arles is the town where Vincent Van Gogh painted some of his greatest works. 

The next day was the festival and we arrived in Saintes Maries around 11. We were to meet some friends of ours, Joachim and Maria Koch, who we met on our Aranui trip and were vacationing nearby. When we got to town, there were several gypsies playing music and dancing. If you've ever heard the group The Gypsy Kings, then you know the kind of music I'm talking about. Fast guitar strokes with a Spanish beat and usually sung in Spanish. While the men sang and played, women (and sometimes men) would dance a flamenco like step. We got the feeling, although there were several tourists there, that this was done for them and not for us. But we were tolerated, in fact they all smiled at us as everyone was really having a great time. 

We met Joachim and Maria and, before the procession had a nice lunch of oysters and grilled sardines. Yum!!  We then headed to the beach to get a good view of the procession, as they leave from the church, go through town, then go to the beach and walk into the sea with the statue of Saint Sarah.  The famous white Camargue horses (the Camargue is the region we were in, the marshy area where the Rhone comes into the sea) and their riders, Les Guardians, lead the way. The horses and riders are quite a beautiful sight, especially when they are prancing around the beach. Les Guardians carry long wooden poles, with a two pronged metal spike on the end, used, I'm presuming, to poke the big bulls that are raised here. 

The procession went by....the horses, priests, gypsies, the statue of Saint Sarah, and hundreds of locals and tourists. Everyone walks down to the sea and enters it, knee deep, including the horses. Then they all walk back to the church. 

The gypsies all come in their camper vans and trailers, camping out over the few days. As we walked by their parking areas, many were gathered together, playing music, cooking meals and talking. This is a great reunion, as the gypsies come from all over Europe. 

The second day of the festival is dedicated to the two Marys and is much less for the gypsies and more of a Catholic event. So, as we drove to town, we saw hundreds of camper vans leaving. Indeed, the second day was much less interesting and, frankly, we could have missed it.   But it was wonderful just driving around the Camargue on the small roads, seeing the white horses, flamingos and other wildlife. The whole area is just a few feet above sea level and you have to wonder what will happen here as the sea rises over the coming decades.