Saint Rémy-de-Provence
About 20 km south of Avignon is Saint Rémy-de-Provence. My friends and I ended up here solely because of an article I had read in some travel magazine. It was the photos accompanying the article that had caught my eye, so what’s odd is I don’t seem to have taken many photos of Saint Rémy-de-Provence myself. I must have been incapacitated by the town’s beauty.
I do have this one of the town hall. It gives you an idea. I mean, what town hall in Canada is draped in flowers?
Saint Rémy-de-Provence has a bit of a gastronomic reputation, and I do remember a delicious steak with Roquefort sauce followed by profiteroles smothered in chocolate sauce and ice cream. When the waiter put the plate down in from of me, he muttered “Mon Dieu!” under his breath — more to himself, it seemed, than to me.
Just outside of Saint Rémy-de-Provence is Saint Paul de Mausole Monastery. We stopped in because it was here that Vincent van Gogh spent a year as a patient at its psychiatric hospital. It’s a beautiful, peaceful place.
On the grounds of the monastery were a series of signs identifying the olive trees that van Gogh painted during his stay. The signs were positioned in such a way that you could see the view that inspired each painting.
Like this.
And this.
Prior to his stay at Saint-Paul de Mausole (which still functions as a hospital), van Gogh lived in Arles for a year. A sketchbook he is reported to have filled during that time, which he later gave to the owners of the Arles café where he lived, was published this week to much controversy. Which has put Vincent van Gogh at the top of the news once again.
All I can say is: The more we talk about art, the better off we’ll all be.
Avignon
The next stop on our Provençal tour is Avignon. Located about 21 km south of Orange, Avignon is the capital of the Vaucluse département. It’s a city that draws in the tourists for a goodly number of reasons:
- It’s still got its original medieval walls.
- It has a papal palace. (Yes, you read that right.)
- It’s got a bridge that every one of you will know from the children’s song. Yup, it’s that bridge. The Pont d’Avignon.
About those walls. They date back to the fourteenth century and were built by Pope Innocent VI, who decided the expanding city needed new defensive ramparts. It was at the height of the Hundred Years’ War, so you can’t really blame him.
About that papal palace. For about 70 years in the fourteenth century, seven consecutive popes lived in Avignon instead of Rome. Why, you ask? Well, it all began when a Frenchman, Clement V, was elected pope in 1305 and decided he didn’t want to leave home. So he set up house in Avignon instead, which back then was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The next six popes after him followed suit. Eventually, Pope Gregory XI moved the papal court back to Rome in 1378. (Incidentally, Gregory XI was the last French pope. I guess the College of Cardinals had good reason to never again select a Frenchman as pope.)
Palais des Papes
But Gregory XI didn’t live long, and after an Italian was elected pope, the French cardinals turned around and elected a second pope who lived in Avignon. This started a new line of Avignon popes and a period that came to be known as the Western Schism. It went on for a while, with one pope in Avignon (today referred to as the anti-pope) supported by the French and one pope in Rome supported by the English. At one point, the cardinals decided to get rid of both popes and elect a new pope, but the first two refused to step down. Which meant there were three popes in all.
What a confusing time it was. (Almost as confusing as our own!) At any rate, all was resolved by the Council of Constance of 1414 to 1418, which declared the concave of 1378 — and the anti-popes of Avignon — invalid.
Avignon remained part of the Papal States until the French Revolution. The papal palace (Palais des Papes) was built between 1334 and 1363.
Incidentally, it was because so many popes were running around Provence that we have the excellent wines known as Châteauneuf-du-Pape (literally, “new castle of the pope”). Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a town about 12 km north of Avignon, is where Pope John XXII built his castle, which has been more or less demolished since, but it was he and the other popes who planted the vineyards. (Thank you!)
And now, finally, about that bridge. Its correct name is actually Pont Saint-Bénézet, after its builder. Built in the early twelfth century, floods washed away 16 of its original arches, leaving only four still standing. It’s a bit odd to stand on the edge of this bridge, singing a children’s song to yourself, but that’s how it’s done in Avignon.
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
On y danse, On y danse
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
On y danse tous en rond
Pont d’Avignon
Orange
As this miserable month rolls on (yes, it’s still raining!), I’m working away on a series of posts about Provence. First up is the town of Orange.
There have been places I’ve been to throughout Europe where it hits me with a wallop that the Romans didn’t just take a quick, grand tour of the continent like the ones we take nowadays and then scurry back to Rome. No, they stuck around. They settled down and they governed people and they built things.
Orange is one of those places.
Orange is located in Vaucluse, one of the six departments of the administrative region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. (France has 18 of these regions and, in case you’re wondering, yes, French bureaucracy is legendary.)
The borders of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur align pretty much with those of the historical French province of Provence. And here’s where we get to the point I’m trying to make: Provence was the first Roman province beyond the Alps. The Romans called it Provincia Romana, giving Provence its name.
Roman soldiers built Orange, around 35 BC, and they built it to look like a mini-Rome. The Triumphal Arch (above ) and Théâtre antique d’Orange (that’s a part of it, below) are pieces of that Roman legacy. (The theatre is now a site of an annual summer opera festival. Note to self: go check that out sometime.)
Provence is staunchly Catholic (more about that next post) with one exception: Orange has Protestant roots. It was part of the principality of Orange, a holding of the House of Orange-Nassau of the Netherlands from 1544 until 1713. (The Dutch Royal Family are still, all these centuries later, members of the House of Orange-Nassau.)
One last bit of trivia to torture myself with on this rainy night: Orange receives an average of 2595 hours of sunshine a year. That’s a far cry more than we ever get in Vancouver.
A Month in Provence
It’s November! My favourite month!
Not!!
To make it worse, Vancouver had a record 28 days of rain in October and we’re already well on track to beat that for this month. Which means it feels like November started a month ago.
To cheer myself up, I’m going to spend this miserable month revisiting Provence. Some years ago, I spent a week there near the end of September, right in the middle of the grape harvest. This was in my pre-digital camera days, so my selection of photos is far fewer than usual, but I did find a handful worth sharing.
Here’s one.
Through My Lens: Bayeux
Heh. Why Bayeux? Why today?
Wait for it. It’s because this history geek can’t let the day go by without acknowledging the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.
Yes, 1066 and all that. The Battle of Hastings is when William the Conqueror of Normandy changed the course of English history.
I haven’t been to Hastings ― yet ― and not so much as the southern coast of England. So here’s a photo of Bayeux, a Norman town in France.
What’s the link between Bayeux and the Battle of Hastings? There’s a pretty famous tapestry in Bayeux called the Bayeux Tapestry. It tells the story of the Norman conquest of England and the Battle of Hastings. I didn’t actually see the tapestry when I was in Bayeux, but I did take this photo.
Au Revoir, Paris
Five years ago today, I boarded the London-bound Eurostar at Gare du Nord in Paris. It was my last day after spending three months in the city.
Three months is a long time. Even so, I remember that last week as a frantic one because I was running around trying to do everything I wanted to do and see everything I wanted to see before it was time to leave.
One of the privileges of spending a winter in Paris is getting to experience scenes like this one. This particular street corner is opposite Père Lachaise Cemetery in the 20e arrondissement.
Merry Christmas!
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris
Parisian Cafés
Every year around this time, I get homesick for Paris, but this year, my mind has been on Paris far more than usual.
I’m sure it’s obvious why: the media coverage on that city has been pretty much nonstop since the Paris attacks a month ago. Attention ramped up again this past weekend when 195 nations at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP21, adopted what’s being called the Paris Agreement.
In short: all eyes ― not just mine ― are on Paris right now. And so, bear with me as I write (yet) another post on my second-favourite city in the world.
Whenever I think back to my winter in Paris, I think of the impressive light displays put up to celebrate the holiday season. The many elaborately decorated Parisian cafés were particularly impressive, with nothing ever done in half measures. (Is that a French thing? Or a “keeping up with the Joneses” thing? I dunno, but I sure enjoyed the results.)
Parisian cafés are special places. In the mind of most visitors to Paris, there is nothing more French than sitting down in a café and ordering un café or un verre de vin. One quickly learns ― and adapts to the idea ― that your one drink buys you the table for as long as you want it.
Which could be hours. Whether you sit there alone, reading or writing or people-watching, or sit there with your family or friends, it doesn’t matter. You will not be rushed. Time stops.
Because they serve beer and wine in addition to all manner of caffeine, Parisian cafés are, technically speaking, café-bars. They also have complete kitchens, which means you can get a three-course meal any time of day. (Cafés are open from morning until late at night, whereas Parisian restaurants generally close for the afternoon.)
As an oftentimes solo traveller, what I especially like about Parisian cafés is the lack of stigma to eating alone, which has not been my experience in other European countries.
The oldest café in Paris is Le Procope in the 6e arrondissement. It opened for business in 1686, shortly after coffee was introduced to the French. My New World brain can’t quite fathom a restaurant that’s been around since a century before the French Revolution.
In time, Parisian cafés became the centre of French discourse and intellectual life, the place where politics and art and philosophy were discussed. Today, there are more than 12,000 cafés in Paris ― one on every corner, it seems, in some arrondissements.
The Paris attacks of last month were horrific and shocking. What was especially horrific and shocking is that Parisians were attacked while enjoying the very essence of what makes them Parisian: having a drink in a café.
Just as I cannot imagine Christmas in Paris without dazzling light displays, I cannot imagine a Paris where fear and trauma have overtaken the café experience. I hope and pray that the magic I felt five Decembers ago in the City of Light is still there. And my Christmas wish for all Parisians is simply this: that they spend the holiday eating and drinking and laughing and loving.
In other words, that they have a Joyeux Noël.
City of Light
My sister and I, along with one of my closest friends, were wandering the streets of Paris, admiring the lights of the season in the City of Light. It was magical. It was Christmas Eve, 2010.
We made our way to Notre-Dame Cathedral. The streets radiating away from the square in front of the cathedral were filled with French police officers sitting in well-lit white police vans, each one eating a rather fine-looking dinner from a take-out container. We approached the cathedral. A pair of cops eyed us carefully as we walked between them to enter the church.
It was unnerving, to say the least. The scene was repeated on New Year’s Eve when my friend and I crossed the Seine in front of the Eiffel Tower. We stopped to take photos of the tower, then I began taking photos of the police officers once again eating fancy dinners in white police vans parked along the bridge. I hadn’t taken more than one or two shots when the driver’s door of the van I was photographing opened. The officer got out and began to walk towards me, and I quickly tucked my camera into my pocket and turned away. Message delivered, the cop returned to the warmth of his van and his waiting dinner. My heart was pounding.
On Christmas Eve, after we exited Notre-Dame Cathedral, my friend marched up to one of the police officers standing nearby. These were big guys. They had big guns ― bigger than any I had ever seen up close. I had no idea what she was planning to do. But as soon as my friend asked (in French) for directions to the nearest Métro entrance, the cops smiled and laughed and showed us their friendly side. It was a welcome relief from the gravity of their security duties.
“I was beginning to feel so uptight,” my friend told me later. “I had to put a voice to the men with the guns.”
As it turned out, the officers sent us around in circles ― to be honest, I think they were less familiar with Paris than we were because they pointed us in the exact opposite direction that we needed to go ― but eventually we found the Métro and made our way home.
This was five years ago. It seemed to us like your usual Christmas Eve, but we were intimidated by the heavy police presence. Thinking about it later, I surmised that the high-level security must be routine near Parisian monuments on nights that attract large crowds. But because it was unlike anything I’d seen in my own country, the sense of intimidation I was experiencing made me feel like a naive Canadian who knew nothing of the real world.
If my heart was pounding then, what would it be doing now, in Paris’s current state of emergency?
Ten months ago, I wrote about how I was at a loss for words to express what I was feeling about horrific events in Paris. This week, once again, I am feeling just as lost. I contacted my Parisian friend who lives here in Vancouver, anxious about what he would tell me because I knew he, being of the same age and social stratum as most of the victims, would know someone affected by the attacks.
I was right. He did. Although all of his friends and family are safe, one of his friends lost someone at the Bataclan. What is that ― three degrees of separation? It feels closer.
The arrondissement that was attacked last Friday night is not one where tourists typically hang out ― it is where young Parisians of all backgrounds live and work and play. It was a neighbourhood not unlike the one where I spent three months ― what Parisians refer to as bobo (short for bourgeois–bohemian) ― and not unlike my own neighbourhood here in Vancouver. All weekend I wondered how I might have reacted had attacks of this nature occurred while I was living in Paris, while my friend and I enjoyed our glass of wine in a café in my arrondissement.
And, as I wondered, I thought again of how inadequate words can be at a time like this. This time, however, as soon as I heard about the attacks in Paris, I thought immediately of a photo I had taken that holiday season almost five years ago.
It was the one I took just before the French police officer frightened me into putting away my camera.
If you take anything away from the words I’ve written here, it’s this: Paris is, and always will be, my city of light.
And only light can overcome darkness.
Armistice Day
With a bit of a shock, I realized this morning that exactly five years ago today I stood shivering for several hours in the cold and rain across from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Just as it is in most provinces of Canada, including my own, November 11 is a public holiday in France. The French refer to it as Armistice Day, in recognition of the end of World War I, whereas in Canada we call it Remembrance Day. In both countries, tribute is paid to our war dead and our veterans, and the sacrifices they made on our behalf. This year, in particular, remembrance is being paid to the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The reason the French perform this tribute beneath the Arc de Triomphe is because that’s where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located. I didn’t have a great view of the goings on near the tomb that day five years ago (see above), but I was able to walk over afterwards and take some photos, which I’ve posted here.
The largest wreath is always laid by the French president. The ribbon below reads “Le Président de la République.”
I don’t make it to the Remembrance Day ceremonies here in Vancouver every year, but every year I do proudly wear my poppy, even though, it seems, that simple gesture has become a political one. All I will say on that topic is this: there is nothing political about me being forever grateful to the Canadian soldiers who liberated my mother and her family from the tyranny of Nazi Germany. If not for them, I would not be here today.
For that reason alone, I will never forget.
There and Back Again 