Armchair Traveller: A Year in Provence

To combat the rainy day blues I get every November, I’ve been basking in my sunny memories of a week in Provence and taking you all along for the ride. At the same time, I’ve been rereading Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, the book that put Provence on the map for most of us English-speaking tourists.

And I have a confession to make: this book almost stopped me from ever going to Provence.

It wasn’t the book itself. In fact, when I finally got around to reading it, I loved it. It’s a delightful read.

No, it was the hype around A Year in Provence that almost stopped me from going to Provence. The book got so much attention when it was published in 1989 that it put me off. I figured if the only travel book anyone was talking about was about Provence, Provence was going to be overrun with tourists and I didn’t want to go anywhere near the place.

Heh. So what changed my mind?

It was actually a travel blog by friends of a friend who spent six months in the Luberon (the area Peter Mayle wrote about). I followed that blog faithfully during this couple’s stay in France and was intrigued by their descriptions of the region. (It was also the first time that a seed was planted in my mind that, hey, maybe I could spend six months somewhere in Europe, since my work is “have laptop, will travel.”)

But what sold me on Provence, specifically, was a post this couple wrote about Collioure in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, just next door to Provence, and which I had visited a few years prior to my decision to visit Provence. Collioure is a lovely little fishing village right on the coast of the Mediterranean, almost in Spain, and this couple described it as far too touristy for their taste. Too touristy? Collouire? If that was their assessment, then Provence must be far more devoid of tourists than I had been led to believe by the success of Peter Mayle’s books. Maybe I should check the place out after all.

I highly recommend A Year in Provence. As the title indicates, Mayle describes a year of living in Provence, month by month, as the seasons change, and as his visitors come and go. It’s truly a book about the people of Provence rather than a travelogue.

Apparently Peter Mayle was encouraged to write the book by his agent when he kept sending letters filled with excuses of why the novel he was suppose to be writing was going nowhere because of all the interruptions he was experiencing from his builders and his neighbours.

“Tell me more about those builders and neighbours,” his agent said.

And the rest, as they say, is l’histoire.