Good places get bad, bad places get bankrupt.

Do you remember this caustic remark from  Lonely Planet's travel  bibles ? It was probably in the section on why it was important to buy the very last issue of their thick and juicy  guidebooks.
Indeed,  this warning applies to Avignon's restaurants. Case in point :  Les Artistes, on Place Crillon. Once a great favorite of ours,  it has lost most of its appeal ; althought the chef is still the same, the service is far to undifferent. An other great deception was the Indian food joint,  Roobiny, rue Guillaume Puy. Even the worst Indian restaurant in the UK would make their attempt at Indian cuisine seem lucridous. If you find yourself around this part of town ( close to the rue des Teinturiers), you should give a try next door to  Le Chapelier Toqué ( a word by word translation of  " Mad Hatter") ; we had good fish there the other day.
 The Cityvox online guide tell of an astounding 682 restaurants in Avignon. I'm not sure all  the bad ones will go bankrupt, thanks to the steady flow of unsuspecting tourists in our little town. If you have a few days to spend here, you should try L'Hermitage, rue Figuière for its innovative cuisine and friendly service in the open, Marius et Jeannette place des Corps Saints, for its look of the 50'ies, Au Périgord Gourmand rue du Vieux Sextier for its terrific Southwest cuisine... All of these places are quite reasonably priced  : dinner for two should not cost you more than 50 euros .... Enjoy, save and  then splurge at a place like Le Moutardier du Pape, facing the Popes Palace, at the Hotel de l'Europe in-house restaurant ... Lastly, do not hesitate to patron " Tutti Frutti", the  fruit juice stall in rue des Marchands, in  the pedestrian area : the owner ( althougt he seems a wee bit tired on the above photograph) makes a brisk trade all summer, and that because he knows how to pick and mix for you the very  best fruit from the markets. Give it a try!

Looking for an Au Pair

Urgently needed : Some help in the daily chores, and some baby sitting.
We are a binational , bicultural couple. My wife, aged 22, a hairdresser, is from Madagascar, but speaks fluent french. I am 49, a international consultant, and native french.  (The man on the photograph is NOT me, but a costumed figurant in a historic event  in Provence)  ! We live right in the center of Avignon, a lively tourist and university town, atop an historic building mostly rented to students and tourists in the summer. We would provide our Au Pair free semi independent accomodation, with own bedroom and bathroom, acces to an independent kitchenette and study/sitting room (we have an other living room upstairs), and would share about three evening meals a week.
Ideal position for a student (possibly two) with a limited budget, a desire to remain independent,  and a desire to help a young mum with a lot on her hands. Our kid's birth is due this month. Apply here, or through the following  web site.

>Au Pair/Nanny Job In Avignon, France can be seen at Easyaupair.com

Back to Basics : the key to a wonderful holiday

Good food,  nice people, lovely landscape, intriguing local stories, a degree of conviviality at night :
 Avignon has all of this.
 We can also advise you on special interest trips :
- For instance, for the book enthusiasts :  Second-hand and specialist bookshops, itinerant  book markets and public libraries  (In nearby Carpentras, the Inguimbertian library ( l'Inguimbertine) is not to be missed).

- Side trip to the Alpilles : only 25 km from Avignon, Saint Remy de Provence, where accomodation is expensive and hard to find, is a world in itself, with many museums and art galleries. Walking around the tiny walled-in city is a pleasure - alas shared by throngs of people. Wandering in the contryside around town is a bit disappointing since  the lanes are not interconnected any more ( most of the farms have become multimilllionaire's villas, and the major roads have a bit  too much  traffic). Van Gogh, ex resident of the local psychiatric hospital,  would nowadays   have a though time wandering around.

Anyway,  why do we publish this young donkey as side photography ? Well because we like him ;  he is from around Saint Remy,  and although he does'nt read much, like us he knows his way around.

Oo eh la theater ? Everywhere in the city !

"Performance can be seen by non francophone spectators" : this mention figures  about every fifth item of the 400 pages-thick Avignon's theater  festival programe. This illustrates a fact : many theater performances are actually dance-drama, circus or music shows and a limited grasp of french is necessary to enjoy them. The street performers are not counted among those, and the clowns, acrobats, dancers who throng the streets are often non-french speaking.
My personal "coup de coeur" goes to an English speaking blonde girl,  ( maybe German ?) an acrobat and mime, last seen performing under southern walls of the Palais des Papes in the tiny square formed by rue Peyrollerie and rue Vice-Legat, close to La Mirande  hotel. A big blonde girl with a ponytail, a demure expression and decidedly retro miniskirts.  She plays a" Do you wanto marry me" number with delighted macho frenchies picked in the crowd. ( I was not selected.)

This year' s Avignon festival seems to be a great success,  frequentation is at a record-high. But most residents are counting days until August.  The city will be at its most enjoyable after this  month-long party is over, and the billboards unfastened. There will still be a lot of shows to pick from, notably a lovely jazz festival, but in a more relaxed atmosphere..

Sustainability Issues in Avignon

While I was working, in a previous life, as a consultant for a governement agency in Madagascar,  putting together the data for  the WorldHotelink website of this country, I became aware of the different meanings of " sustainable tourism", depending on one's cultural background.
 The WHL team ( Mostly anglo-saxon, and living in developed countries)  was expecting us to put more emphasis on large operations, with a recorded track of sustainability ( focusing on things like waste treatement, renewable energy, donations to NGO's...). They wanted no information on social issues, (minimum wages, local recrutment or ownership). The "Sustainable" hotel who won first price  that year was a US-owned luxury palace in a large track of private rainforest in Central America. (Sounded like an ex United Fruit plantation painted green to me !).
I was advocating the potential of small ( 5 to 20 rooms) units, family owned, located in small cities... My cultural model of sustainability was that of a french provencal Auberge ! Not illogical, if you consider that their modus operandi  has been sustained for several centuries, without negative impact on the environment nor trendy herbal-spas. But let me come to the point:
A holiday in Avignon is a case in point of sustainable, low-emissions tourism.
Green-minded tourists can have the time of their life here, eating proper food, and minimising their carbon imprint. To do so, you could arrive by train ; rent a pushbike from an automated ( an solar powered) docking post of the Velopop' system (pay per ride, city operated), then cycle your way around town. It's Avignon's answer to Paris's Velib bike-hire scheme or the Barclay's cycle hire launched in London today.
If you don't feel quite  fit enough, call a cycle rickshaw ! Velo cite (www.velo-cite.fr, phone 06 37 36 48 89, e mail : velociteavignon@gmail.com) is a team of four  hardy cyclists, ready to wheel you around town on comfy contraptions, british-built but looking very much like designer's version of Indian rickshaws. Avignon is rather flat, but the cyclists are helped by electric batteries and sharing their experience of town with the clients is one of their priorities.
Crossing the Rhone river on the electric ferry is also a must ; from the landing point, on the green Barthelasse island, you can walk to vegetable growers , and buy organic food . Several organic farmers exist in the so-called " green belt" within Avignon municipal limits, and inside town are also excellent retailers selling organic ( here we say "bio")  fruits and vegetables.  ( My favorite is La Courgette en Folie, rue Saint Michel). Many other opportunities abound in the city, for instance to understand the  potential of solar energy  in homes, or the organic food market organisation... all the while enjoying a pleasure trip in an inventive city  that has remained little changed since about 700 years. For lovers of the planet, it beats jetting to Central America, in my opinion.

Festival mood in Avignon

Viva la Commedia

The world's largest theater festival opened today in Avignon. More than one thousand differend theater companies ( from one-person shows to huge performing teams) vie for your attention in the streets and  venues of the city - schools, shops, gym rooms etc being  all converted in makeshift theaters. An estimate of five  thousand performers enjoy the city athmosphere, and their banter, stunts and laughs make everybody else happy. Their combined repertoire goes from farcical to decidely mystic. We elected to welcome a company from the Indian ocean - actors, dancers and musicians  from Reunion, Madagascar and Mauritius, so our place, fully booked by now until August, takes a creole flavour.

EScale Théatre

U-topie

I feel the festival's mood this year is set both on  the plays of classical times - 17th and 18th century, ( top left is a photograph of a company performing Moliere and Shakespeare Viva la Commedia!- and also on political shows. The Wahrschein Kabarett ( photo, left)is a remarkable play by Philippe Fenwick et al, revisiting propaganda discourses both sides of the Berlin wall. Escale theatre has a long history of performing in rural villages and  out of the way places. They play every morning in  the Agricol Perdiguier garden next to St Martial temple and the tourist office.  Another politicallly minded show is U-topie, a play on the 1871 Commune de Paris, every night at 21.30 in the College de la Salle, a big affair with choir singers, puppets,  giving a voice to the " voiceless people in history".

A refreshing restaurant, run by young professionnals

A stone’s throw from the crowds munching a standard meal on Place de l’Horloge or in the tight maze of pedestrian streets, the Hermitage restaurant enjoys one of the most carefully laid open air dining area in Avignon, rue Figuière, a very central square shadowed by the fresh walls of the church of St. Didier and ancient plane trees. The chef is from Avignon, but inspired by his early career experiences in Asia. His eye for detail and creative alliances is already a mark of this restaurant-cum-wine bar that is the opposite of a tourist factory, while maintaining low prices. The menu is resolutely oriented towards fresh produce of Provence, but in a "fusion cuisine" perspective. Check the excellent goat cheese and honey nems, the salmon tartare with fresh spinach, the rather amazing duck breast with gingerbread, and even the fillet of sole cooked in a banana leaf ... For wine, if the reasonably priced menu allows for a little luxury, give priority to the great classics of the region, including the Crozes Hermitage, a heady cote-du Rhone which inspired the name of their restaurant to Freddy and Jo, the two young managers from Vaucluse. After extensive training, including in the Opera Cafe, they run their first own business here - after having completely renovated it themselves, including the dining room with its vaulted ceilings.

Acces: Carpark Halles or Jean-Jaures. Easy walking access, 100 meters from the Rue de la Republique (follow the small street between McDonalds and Fnac, and then enter rue Figuière,  past the House of poetry and Utopia Republique cinema.)

Why don't folks stop in Avignon ?

The Figaro daily http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/  annouced today that France, first world tourist destination by the number of visitors, ranks only third in revenue behind the United States and Spain. "Spain overtook us ten years ago. Ever since are we losing market share, "says Christian Mantei of Atout France, the country's tourism promotion bureau. Last year, these revenues accounted for 36 billion euros, against 39 billion for Spain and 69 billion for the United States. The market share of France in Europe fell from 19.6% in 2000 to 16% in 2009. The British, like the Germans, are less likely to consider coming on holiday in France, focusing on long stays in Spain and Italy."
Apparently they enter France, cross the country at top speed, overnight in a not so cheap roadside inn accomodation and are counted once as visitors, then once again on their way back home.

Well let me tell you - they should stop in Avignon. Not at our place - we are not  keen on overnight stays, due to our lack of organisation - but downtown anyway. Avignon is 20 km south of  the fork were the huge north-south motorway A6 branches towards Spain on the A9 and the Riviera on the A7. Get out of A7 at Avignon Nord, enter the city  after a few Km along the Rhone river, easily park the car (for free in the streets, after six o'clock, or  at any time along the city walls), and spend a night or more into this extraordinary city. You can dine and wine yourselves like a Pope for 14 euros a head. ( The Hermitage restaurant just opened downstairs from our building, but more on this later) Then, after a pleasant night and an early morning stroll in the freshly sprayed  streets, you could buy a postcard,  a bag of lavender, and continue by car if you must towards Spain (  following the Nîmes signs) or Italy ( the Marseilles signs, even in you won't come near it). Maybe I should write to Mr.Mantei, and suggest him to post me on a little chair on that motorway fork,  just to give  info away.

An English language bookshop in Avignon

The only English language bookshop in Avignon is located in the eastern part of  the walled-in city. Walk east for about a mile from the Popes's palace along the long and winding Carreterie street, past the derelict-looking church spire of the Augustinians, and you shall reach a lovely bookshop modestly hidden behind a garage type door, painted blue.  It boast a rather large stock of books, both new and secondhand, a good ordering service, and a friendly manager.

Shakespeare Books Avignon was founded in June 1994 by Wolfgang Zuckermann, author of five books and former consultant in Paris and owner of Zuckermann Harpsichords in  New York.
Note  : Mr Zuckerman recently sold his bookshop to a new and young  bookseller ; we wish her the best of success).
Though Shakespeare Books is not officially related to George Whitman's Shakespeare & Co, Paris, Wolfgang Zuckermann 'followed the tradition of English bookshops in France, first started by Sylvia Beach in Paris 1919 with the original Shakespeare & Co'. He is more relaxed and friendly than was his counterpart opposite Notre Dame de Paris. ( I still rememberWhitman's anger when I refused to have my  Penguin copy of  Ulysse defaced by his rather large inkstamp ; nowadays Withman's daughter, named Sylvia in memory of the famous Mrs. Beach, runs the Paris show). Airy and built on a single level , Avignon's Shakespeare seems to offers less opportunity for kissing one's Valentine than the original Parisian maze of books.   There is a tiny garden of sorts at the back, though, and Mr Zuckermann is willing to serve English cream tea and scones in the afternoon. (One might feel he his too much of a delightful character to bother him with menial chores, though.) His place is still redolent of that  nostalgic atmosphere that most English-language bookshops aboard used to have. I'm sure you have visited at least one of those bookshops that seem to be open exclusively for  the benefit of a handful of exiles, or at least, for people definitely not wishing they'd be home, but unable to cut their intellectual ties with the anglo-saxon world. Shakespeare Avignon could be anywhere nice and unexpensive,  in Tangiers, Sienna, Obidos or Kathmandou ; anyplace were people that are not 'travellers' neither  'mass tourists' like to hang out. Follow their steps into that abode of great books, just to check that serious reading is better done under foreign skies. After all, is it not rather more pleasant to immerse oneself resolutely in a novel, if one knows for sure that excitement and novelty are around the corner ? ( photo at bottom  from the bookshop's web site, http://shakespeare.bookshop.free.fr). PS : In the good old days, people were allowed to unroll their sleeping bags in the Paris Shakespeare. Should you need accomodation in Provence, don't forget we have rooms and studios to let in Avignon  .



La librairie Shakespeare (Shakespeare Books) Avignon was founded in June 1994 by Wolfgang Zuckermann, author of five books and former owner of Zuckermann Harpsichords, New York. Though Shakespeare Books is not officially related to George Whitman's Shakespeare & Co, Paris, Wolfgang Zuckermann followed the tradition of English bookshops in France, first started by Sylvia Beach in Paris 1919 with the original Shakespeare & Co.

Avignon : friendliest city for gays in the south of France

Could it be an heritage from Papal times and so-called “tuscan ways”? Or an influence of the masive influx of actors during the festival ? Avignon is a gay friendly city. Even in winter time, is not uncommon to see same-sex kissing or holding hands, but the summer season brings a party mood to the city.Yesterday the second local gay pride parade was a succes, with a street parade of several  truckloads of dancing gentlemens and ladies - not easily distinguishable from each other. The event was sponsored by  local gay businesses: "La Comédie", a restaurant , "La Scène", a restaurant and bar, "L'Opéra", "Le Cid",  famous cafés on the Place de l’Horloge, "l'Esclave" and "La Cage", two night-clubs and "La Station" – an underwear boutique. Avignon is no Mykonos or Sitges, but seems to act  as a magnet for gays from the more conventional cities around (Nîmes, Orange, etc.). It is also a travel destination for gays from the north of Europe. Did we ever mention it is a very romantic city ?

10 things NOT to do in Provence

Just for fun , and  inspired  by the web site concierge .com famous do's and dont's, we compiled a list of ten dont’s – and what to do instead, in a region that the shrinked euro makes affordable again.

1-Wear hiking shoes in the streets.

 Look  : you are visiting towns and villages that have streets since Roman times.  By now their pavement is perfectly smooth and your heavy walking shoes will feel out of place. Instead, bring your best office shoes with you : In France, a person status is very much determined by what he/she wears on its feet. And nice shoes might help you resist the temptation of bermuda shorts, flowered shirts and tank-tops.

2-Splurge on a three star restaurant

Yes,they are great, but also mightily over-priced : why pay New York prices for decent french food when  you are in France ? Instead, ask around for nice places.  With a good guide and more importantly advices   from your hotels, the local shopkeepers, you can have a  great lunch or dinner at french prices. And save the money for an other trip.

3- Stand in line to visit Avignon’s bridge.

 First, you wont even reach the opposite  bank ! The far end of St Benezet bridge has been destroyed several centuries ago by the Rhone river and the mighty mistral wind. But althought a lovely sight, it is ridiculously over priced, simply because the  town wants to make most of its reputation. Instead, take the free shuttle boat across to river to green Barthelasse island  and you will enjoy a view identical from the photograph above. Do not forget to visit the Palace of the Popes even if it seems pricey, and the Pont du Gard, a huge roman aqueduct 25 Km west of the city.

4-Taxe taxis around

They’ll cost you  “ la peau des fesses”   your  bottom’s skin. Avoid also  the tourist trains slow and prone to get stuck in traffic. ( Not always so slow  : one of them recently overturned in Marseilles due to an excessive speed). Instead, enjoy public transportation on the fine network of subsidized buses, both inter cities and inner cities , or on 'velopop' the pay-per-ride bike lending system in Avignon

5-Keep a large bottle of mineral water in your bag

 Again, this is a civilized country. No need of toting your personal water reserve as  a trekker in Betchuanaland. And the climate, though sunny, doesn't make our place a subtropical country. (Provence is at the latitude of Maine or Oregon). Instead , enter a café at any time of day.  Drink at the counter.  A glass of water is free, by tradition  ; should you want a free pee-pee also, you might be definitely pushing your luck with the bartender. Order something, anything. The cheapest drink in a french bistrot is a lemonade, enjoy it with mint  or  grenadine  syrup : it  will often be cheaper than  a can of soda at a vending machine or in a convenience store !

6-Book in a Hotel Chain

They are made for visiting businessmen and often tucked in industrial outskirts miles from anything interesting. Instead,  book in a small city hotel or a flat or  guest room rented by one of the locals. You won't be bothered by the whirr of the central air conditionning, and you’ll be more likely to hear the cicadas ... Have you visited our  august 2009 post about the flats we rent ?

7-Buy yourself a vineyard

Côtes du Rhone is the word here. And also Côte du Ventoux,  Coteaux d’Aix. Lovely landscape. Small exploitations.  Some people dream to make  a life style of it. And  are ready to sell everything aat home to buy the whole gammut, a few acres of land, a house with plane-trees and cellars. Talk about a million dollars. It is a sure  way to ruin if are not willing to toil for selling the stuff. Forget quiet evenings watching the wine leaves changing colors, sitting on a stone bench under the plane tree. Over-production of cheap and intermediate wines is such that several dis-illusioned investors are putting back their dream for sale. Instead, if you are in love with wine, visit the specialized shops : I recommend  Avitus, a cave and wine bar, and of course l’Hermitage, soon to open downstairs from our building.

8- Try to park in downtown Marseilles

The streets around the Vieux Port are as congested as Chicago, and your lovely Mercedes or Peugeot  brand new and shining from the Avis stables will be at great risk of being hijacked or burglarized. If I was a good guy, I’d tell you were is the one free parking lot downtown ( tip : in the backyard of a  no frills supermarket.) But then Marseilles was not meant for good guys. Reading the news, it apparently still is the nations capital of  organized crime, keeping loose links with politics and unions. Thank God, the organization itself appear far from perfect, so the ambience is relaxed.  Marseilles is a great city for a day tour. Instead, go by train, keep your sun glasses on at all times, like the local boys do, and fancy yourself  as a deputy of Al Pacino coming to settle a few scores with the Corsicans.

9 –  Gape at  real estate agents windows.

Locals feel  that the price of real estate has been pushed up tremendously by the influx of foreigners. It is probably  depressing to see tourist gaping in clusters at wide-angled-photographs over hiked up prices in agents’s shop windows  - just like kids in front of an icecream parlour.( The Real estate  market has long been depressed in France, and moves slowly.) Plus, figure that the old Madame Escartefigue, willing after all to sell one of her lovely village house, is not keen at all of seing its intentions advertised in front of the neighbours she despizes since about 1955. Instead, should you want to invest, do it quietly, from your armchair, on a computer, and start using first the four big real estate agency networks : Orpi, Fnaim, Laforet, Guy Hoquet.

10 – Pity the bulls in Arles or  Nîmes.

In western Provence and the Languedoc, the corrida de toros is taken seriously.  A month ago, the web site for Arles Easter feria was  hijacked  and defaced by anti-corrida  hackers : they published across the homepage a sentence by Mahatma Gandhi saying that a one could evaluate  a civilisation’s greatness by the  death it  bestowed on its animals, and a few gruesome photographs. Instead of voicing your love for animals ovr a glass of pastis, consider the wisdom words of the Mahatma : the barbarian but noble death of the toro, admired and respected by thousands of people united in  a spiritual fervour at the arena, is much more civilized than at  the slaughterhouse.

Dutch and British sailors jailed in Provence

Tarascon's royal castle is a massive dungeon, built in white stone for the Good King Rene,  count of Anjou and king of Provence right on the banks of the Rhone river, just outside the city walls. Among the curiosities  of the building, in a remarkable state of conservation, are the graffitis of erstwhile prisonners, many of them with english-sounding names.The place served as a Naval prison, safely located 30 miles inland : piracy was whitesperad on the lower Rhone, and British crews have been detained in the fortress as late as 1815.

On Saturday, June 26 2010, a reconstitution of the naval conflicts of the era  will be held under the castle walls, during the traditional ' Fete de la Tarasque'complete with boats, guns fireworks, 200 locals in costumes. This will largely beat the retransmission of Fifa World cup matches, in my opinion. Even if you miss the party, this place is a must-see of every voyage in Provence, with a lovely reconstitution of medicinal and aromatic garden in one of the courtyards. Tarascon Itself, half an hour from Avignon, is  a maze of cobbled streets leading to old chapels, museums, the Soleiado  manufacture of fabrics, and good priced restaurants ( I recommend the Brasserie du Palais, were Bernard and Charles speak english, for breakfasts and lunch.).
Tarascon is an interesting site, where the Rhone river flows at its mightiest, just before entering his delta know as the Camargue.  It is a major crossroad for rail, linking Italy, Spain and northern Europe, and was heavily bombed before the allied  forces landing operations in Provence in 1944 : last year's fete de la tarasque was devoted to a reconstitution of the  Allied landing near Saint Tropez.

Visit French Listed Historic Monument N°2

When Prosper Merimee,  learned and fashionable writer of the 19th century drawed his famous list of remarkable French monuments, around 1840, item number One was Mount Saint Michel in Normandy. That extraordinary  pyramid of stone defying both the tides and the English certainly deserved the honour of being listed in the inventory that later directly inspired the French National Heritage listing.  (No surprise, because Merimee became Inspector of Historic Monuments.)
 But then, what was item number Two on the writer's list ? Not Versailles, neither Notre-Dame de Paris. No Amiens, no Vezelay or Chenonceaux. Not even the Palace of the Popes. But  a rather humble stone chapel,  Saint Gabriel, at the western foot of the Alpilles, 20 km from Avignon in the  Tarascon Municipal limits.

Saint Gabriel, built in the XII century  is one of the very few chapels in this country to be dedicated to an Angel, not a Saint ; it is also a fascinating  edifice  mixing  splendid sculpture on the main  facade over the door with absolute sobriety inside. The location is gorgeous. Something quite peculiar definitely radiates from the site. Peace. Inspiration. Sacred breeze in the pine trees. Absolutely not trinquets sellers or soda-vending stalls.
Our suggestion for a memorable day: You can easily walk from Saint Remy ( 20 mn by public transport from Avignon's gare routiere, located 5 minutes from home)  to Saint Gabriel, in about four hours, along a lovely and partly shaded footpath. Then  enjoy the place at length,  briefly regret the absence of  the soda vending stalls, and then walk to the next crossroad and  take a bus back to Avignon, Tarascon... or even Arles where you can have lunch or dinner and then bus back to Avignon. We can check the bus times for you, lend you  maps and directions.
Olivia and I are so impressed by this site, discreet but very dear to the heart of the local population, that we decided to call our first son Gabriel.

Avignon : Brand new beds in a gothic home.

There are some brand new beds in the one-bedroom flat available for rent this season. yet something in the adjacent wall  of the master bedroom may surprise you. You will notice the presence of various cabalistic symbols on the stones, called " peiro signado" in  provencal :  forget about Nostradamus and  Da Vinci code, these are the marks of the Companions, or  stone cutters. They were paid by the stone, and so identification of their work was essential. This custom predates the fourteenth century, and the installation of the popes in Avignon. When staying in our city, make sure you  live not only in the inner city walls, but in the ancient  gothic-era center, wonderfully restored. and where you will find all the museums  and action.. (this central area is in  located in a small crcle of streets , on the south the rue des lices, the west rue vernet, the east  rue sain,  and on the north the  Rhone river and the palace of the Popes itself..

Volcanic cloud makes for quiet streets in Avignon

Quieter-than-usual spring season in Avignon : the no-fly zone extended over Europe, and more importantly, the long TGV (superfast trains linking the city to Paris and beyond London and Amsterdam) strike, all but isolated Avignon last week.

 I could not resist  publising this 1947 Times article, from the 1947 April 14 issue, Atlantic Oversea edition,  page 24, found in an old copy sold for 20 centimes at a  " Brocante" ( second-hand goods market) today, in Bonpas, near Avignon. Isn't it beautiful  in its sobriety and precision? Seems that nowadays the main danger from  eruptions is the information  flood...
Not all airports where closed, and I fetched my wife last week from Lyons' St Exupery airport, very convenient. Makes sense to rent a car there and watch the vegetation go greener the more you travel south down the Rhone Valley - if you have a flight from this small but cosy airline hub. Two hours by expressway, or you could stop en route in places like Pont St Esprit ( for the ancient bridge), or Grignan (for the castle)...

Cubicula locanda

That's latin for " Rooms to let".  I don't now how that title will rate with the search engines such as google or yahoo, but indeed we have nice rooms to let in the city of the Popes, a mediaeval wonder in the midst of Provence. If you comme at all to Avignon, you should stay right in the gothic-era city center of this former world capital.  You will undoubtely enjoy the visit of the Pope's palace, but also the walks in the pedestrian shopping area nearby,  the museums, churches, restaurants, open-air markets...

We have at home a small english language library from which you  will be welcome to borrow. (Links between Avignon and english-speaking writers as diverse as Henry Rider Haggard ( Remember the Red Eve and Murgh the Messenger ?),  Lawrence Durrell - the Quintette d’Avignon ... are numerous and often amusing. ) There is also a friendly english bookshop on rue Carreterie, not far from our place, which doubles up as a tea-romm most afternoons.

 Below are a few photographs of the  second floor rooms and the first floor studio with mezzanine...  (a work in progress, will be ready by end of April ...) designed to accomodate four people under a spectacular beamed ceiling.  Contact us  for bookings  : catamaran@ymail.com and please note that we are already fully booked in july.

Lady Ashton, EC foreign affairs supremo, to study French near Avignon

Le Figaro " story of the day" is a front page feature in the influential Paris daily.  This morning, Baroness Ashton was quoted as answering to an angry French cabinet minister that yes, she needed to improve her French ; and that she was to spend this summer a week near Avignon in a language school.

The school  she elected  is apparently "Millefeuille", which offers residential French language courses for adults, and an opportunity to "study and practise French 50 hours per week and more…", with a friendly native team of teachers, while staying in the elegant premises of Chateau Correnson. Their website http://www.millefeuille-provence.com also provides links to a free langage level test, and a basic on-line course in french.
Le Figaro went on to regret that the minister's remark was likely to reinforce  the image of France as an arrogant  country prone to teach unwanted lessons to others. Let's hope the prestigious student will have time to escape to Avignon, and see by herself that nowadays you don't need to be a langage specialist with top diplomatic abilities to fully enjoy a visit in Avignon and Provence. ( photo : the gates of the " Petit palais" in Avignon.)

"Village in the Vaucluse", a Harvard man in Provence

Laurence Wylie,  eminent teacher for whom a chair was created in Harvard, spend a year in Luberon with his wife and young kids. He didn't stay in a million-euro mas with a pool and a couple of 4WDs, bought on a huge consultant's or lawyer's salary, but during a sabbatical, on a small university grant, in an icily-cold rented village house. It all happened sixty years ago, and the Wilies didn't even own a car. Instead, they seem to have made a great number of friends. After a while, even the communist villagers agreed Laurence  was not a spy busily preparing an American invasion in case France went Red.
Born 1909, the friendly American actually was an anthropologist specializing in the study of French culture and civilization. In his book he draws a very warm, and at times quite witty, account of life in the early fifties in this remote Provencal village he calls 'Peyrane' - actually Roussillon, 40 km from Avignon, between Gordes and Apt.
His fascinating work  'depicts the villagers within the framework of a systematic description of their culture and way of life' (Harvard University press blurb). The book was translated in French during the sixties,  but is, somewhat remarkably, not very popular in France, maybe because the author chooses  not to focus his incisive, jargon-free analysis on parent relations, symbolic expressions, language, religious beliefs and mythologies. Instead, he affectionately and precisely describes things as exotic as  'securité sociale', bowling manners, etc, and also  what the French call " une société bloquée",  a stuck-up society, where jealousy, even hatred impregnate most interpersonal relations, to a degree which for instance effectively prevents the village as a whole to get  a new school building, or young tenants to move in unoccupied houses. The owners had rather the roofs removed.  Poverty was widespread, even the well-off were living in extreme simplicity. Post-card pretty as it may look in the author's B&W photographs,'Peyrane' in the fifties was a hell to live in. But a hell where everybody knew everybody.
 Sixty years after the Wylie's sabbatical in Roussillon, Provence has become a world favorite destination and Vaucluse " golden triangle" a favorite holiday  haunt of the ruling French elite, with a good deal of rich Americans sprinkled over. 
The unconfortable house rented in 1950 by the anthropologist and his wife - which they could have bought for $3000 - was sold to a sculptor, then to world famous novelist Jean Lacouture. It was valued well over a million dollars in 1987 when Wylie wrote a postscript to his study, noting that the village was invaded by tourists on the watch for celebrities,  but hmself failing to recognize most of his former friends. By this time the 'community' that once was 'Peyrane', with its bitter interpersonal feuds and wonderful sense of beign a united village, had all ceased to exist.


The POSTFACE was published in Wylie L., 1988, « Roussillon, un village dans le Vaucluse, 1987 », Terrain, n° 11, pp. 29-50.

A Public Library fit for the Name of the Rose

The Ceccano Municipal Library is housed in a huge, unassailable, pale limestone palace, the only gothic residential structure in Avignon which does not pale in comparison with the Palace of the Popes. This formidable dungeon built during the papacy of Benedict XII actually predates the famous Palace ; it was the "livrée" of cardinal Annibale de Ceccano. It holds about 50000 books, 7000 manuscripts, and 60000 prints and drawings. It is indeed a pleasure to wander through the bookselves under the painted rafters of the ceremonial rooms, or to rest on a stone bench by an antique window, holding a copy of Edwin Mullins' "Avignon of the Popes", wich brings to life the history of the city.
But it is thanks to an other author, David Lodge, (in The Year of Henry James) that I became aware again that Umberto Eco's famous bestseller of the eighties, "The name of the Rose" was staged right in the period when the popes where exiled in Avignon, then dubbed the 'Altera Roma'.

Remember the moving letter of dying Prior Adso ? Umberto Eco concluded this epistle and his palpitating and erudite crime novel with the famous verse :
STAT ROSA PRISTINE NOMINE, NOMINA NUDA TENEMUS
Only the name of the early Rose remains, nude names only are left to us

Mr. Lodge says, along with many scholars, that the'Rosa' so mysterious in the book as well as in the famous verse might have stood for 'Roma' due to a copying error. But here I beg to dissent : indeed in Avignon the museum holds a precious gold and jewel rose, wich was bestowed by the popes to their most grand and faithfull supporters visiting the Holy See in Avignon.
Umberto Eco's novel explicitly refers to the visit of Michael of Cesena in the benedictine abbey, while en route to Avignon, in the winter of 1321 under the papacy of John XXII, Benedict XII predecessor. So maybe this was the key of the power struggle in the abbey : they all wanted to please the pope and get a pretty "Souvenir d'Avignon" just like modern-day visitors.

Note : The mediatheque is about 100 meters from our studios and flats, the weather is now so warm that you dont't even need to put a jacket on to go there and to verify my ( precarious) theory by digging in its numerous books and manuscripts. Entrance is free, membership cards for borrowing books and CD's cost 9 Euros for Avignonnais and 20, for less happy mortals.

Avignon during the festival

During the July Theater Festival Avignon is a different sort of place. People say this is the worlds biggest theater festival, and it might well be true. But most importantly, this extraordinary time of the year gives the city a unique, youthfull atmosphere that lingers on for many months. Actualy there are two festivals at the same time : Rather like on Broadway, there is a "In" festival in the Pope's palace and a few other grand venues, for big officila productions, and an " Off" festival for smaller, independent compagnies, one-man shows, performances, etc.

The Off boasts 250.000 spectators, 800 theater companies, a thousand shows in a hundred different venues.
Here are a few photographs of the streets of Avignon last July, adorned with the billboards that advertise the shows. Even the most blasé of the Popes'city denizens love that period. Actors in costumes throng the streets, al fresco dining is the rule. Nights are hot and short. It is more than a cultural event : an experience, gathering artists and audiences from all around the world.
Every year, the festival welcomes artists and performers from many countries and many languages will be heard on the stages : French as well as English, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Polish, German and Hebrew.

Accomodation at this time of the year will be a bit tricky to find. Prices of our studios and rooms must be discussed and booked well in advance.

This man is not Buffalo Bill Cody !

He is Frederic Mistral, the father of the "felibre" movement of writers, publishers and poets, based in Avignon and which revived the provencal language in the second half of the nineteen century .
One of his most notable followers, the Marquess Folco de Baroncelli-Javon, took a lasting fancy for the american hero and it's Wild West Show.
In a fascinating book : " Cock and Bull Stories: Folco de Baroncelli and the Invention of the Camargue", (univ of Nebraska) Robert Zaretsky links the most respected poet of Provence with Buffalo Bill, Sioux Indians, and the horse-mounted gardians, the cowboys of Camargue. The Cock is the Gallic symbol of France, and the Bull stands for southern France with its deeply different history and culture. Langage and economic issues of the domination by the northern " francimans" of the southern " povre merjonaux" are dealt with in this ingenious book which adopts a thesis little in vogue with french researchers, whose careers depends of the reveration of a French Republic united around ideals professed by the Paris media.
Folco de Baroncelli, a local aristocrat who married into wine, failed to be the follower of Mistral. A relatively mediocre writer, he was deeply moved by the fate of the Oglala Sioux, a Native American people, reinvented the history of Camargue, the Rhone delta region, rich in wild horses, bulls, pink flamingoes and mosquitoes. Galvanized by the example set by Buffalo Bill Cody, Baroncelli did recast the Camargue as 'le far-ouest' of France. The fun, and little know part of the story is that he himself created from scratch the 'immemorial' traditions he battled to protect. The costume, ceremonial, mythic origins, in fact the whole concept of " nacioun guardiano", developped in a few years and later endorsed by politicians and tour-operators alike, is entirely his doing. Creating one of the last myth of his country didn't bring him much money, though : Having sold his palace in the heart of Avignon, his wife's wine estates, he retired in Camargue and died in 1942 in Avignon when the civilan population delta was evacuated by the Germans in the preparation of the american landing in Provence.

Winter in the hills of Provence

Avignon is surrounded by hills. Tiny mountains, like les Alpilles, which tend to keep snow longer than the plains. Here are a few photographs of les Baux de Provence, a somewhat overtouristed place in the summer, but which seems to have reverted to its pre-war state of quiet abandon.
The sky is often incredibly blue, road conditions are back to normal, the temperature is at least five degrees warmer than in Paris, and in my opinion it's altogether a great time of the year to come to Provence, ans see light again. " Post Tenebrae Lux" as man wrote on the old lintel of this ruined renaissance window of les Baux.

From Venasque to Gordes

Both these cities, some 25 kilometers from Avignon, are " villages perchés", fortress-like heaps of house cluttered on a hill top and down its rapid slopes ; Gordes is world famous, of course, one of the prettiest villages in Luberon ; but Venasque, facing Mount Ventoux, and adorned with a very ancient church is quite interesting.
The road between them passes by the cistercian Abbey of Senanque, and some wonderful scenery, ( through wich it was not incommon to be attacked by brigands until late in the nineteen century). Read french author Jean Giono for the details.
The beehive-shaped houses are called bories, a whole village of these can be visited near Gordes. Guess what ? they even have a real estate value.

Record-breaking snow in Avignon

Friday night was unusually cold and quiet. Yesterday, Avignon woke up under a thick, frozen blanket of snow. A rare event in the city of the Popes, noted for its dry climate. Kids were playing - some of them even skiing- on the sloped Place du palais des Papes. The snow was so heavy that it broke some tree branches. The inner-city streets are still covered with it after 24 hours ; no municipal service can effectively enter this maze of frozen lanes. But shops are still open : those are the first days of " les soldes de janvier", boxing day sales, and customers are not deterred by the snow. Certainly not my wife...