Provence je t'aime. Gordon Bitney
in the distance.
Carpentras has no exterior ring road, so all drivers going through have to suffer the congested streets. Then, reaching the south edge of the city and the arrow-straight D942 highway, we dashed to Avignon.
We took the exit ramp at Le Pontet, a suburb on the north side of Avignon, and did our shopping. The drive took less than an hour. We had talked very little on the way as we were preoccupied taking in the scenery for the first time this year.
“We should be able to make it into Avignon for lunch. Do you want to try La Cour du Louvre in town or go to Le Bercail across the river?” Marie-Hélène asked.
“Le Bercail. . . . It’s sunny and warm, so we can eat on the terrace by the water,” I answered.
Le Bercail is known for its stunning location on an island looking across the Rhône River at Avignon. We arrived to see the bright red parasols that shade the diners spread along the riverbank. A canal boat with a husband-and-wife team and a child playing on deck chugged by as we ordered lunch.
“Bon appétit,” we said, and touched glasses. Our conversation turned to the fish and ducks swimming in the river just below us.
We gazed across the river toward the towering walls that surround the old city of Avignon. In 1309 Pope Clement V, fearing the violence and chaos in Rome, moved the Papal Curia to Avignon and began construction of the Pope’s Palace, which grew to cover an area of over 11,000 square metres and still dominates the skyline. Our view included the Pont d’Avignon, which now extends just halfway across the river, and its small chapel midway on the remaining part of the bridge. The 900-metre stone pont, built between 1171 and 1185, was constructed because of the divine inspiration of a shepherd boy. But unstable soil in the river bed led to numerous collapses, and finally the catastrophic flood of 1668 swept away too much of the structure for it to be worthwhile rebuilding. The shepherd was beatified Saint Bénézet for his vision, and the bridge inspired the song known around the world as “Sur le pont d’Avignon.”
We returned home that afternoon to find a rumpled piece of paper stuck in the door stating that the mason had been there but couldn’t get into the house to do any work. The tradesmen just assume there will always be someone there to let them in.
Marie-Hélène said, “Oh well, it was a nice day anyway.”
I had a sick feeling that they had left to start a new project somewhere that someone else had been waiting on, and that we wouldn’t see them again until that project was finished in a week or a month, or possibly longer.
• • •
Our projects kept us from pursuing the things that we had come to Provence to do. We had bought bicycles to get out into the countryside, not in a car but in the plein air, as the French call it. Except for a couple of outings when we first got them, they had remained in the garage. We assured ourselves we would have time to put them to use. Today, as a break from our work, and because no trades were there, we decided to do just that.
I got the bicycles out and pumped up the tires. We lacked the smart cycling outfits that we saw on the main roads almost daily, but we had shorts, runners and T-shirts and that would have to do. We also had something few Frenchmen seemed to wear—helmets.
The hill behind our house offered excellent riding. The back roads that ramble through the hills have almost no traffic except for the comings and goings of a few farmers. We planned a ride some fourteen kilometres over the hilltop to Vinsobres, lunch there and a return at our leisure. The first part of the ride was a steep section to the crest of the hill. This was the hardest part and it left us puffing.
“I need to rest,” Marie-Hélène said, climbing off her bicycle.
“So do I,” I said, gasping.
We sat on the ground next to a vineyard for several minutes while we recovered our breath.
“How do these vines grow here?” Marie-Hélène asked. “There’s just rock and no soil.”
I looked around to see vines growing out of a surface covered in stones. No soil was visible.
“Well, there is soil underneath. The ploughs just pull the stones to the surface.”
The first few leaves of spring had recently appeared on the vines, and small clusters of buds showed where the grape clusters would follow.
We wiped our brows, climbed back on our bicycles and settled down to the easier ride ahead. From here the road followed the contours of the land. We sped down the ravines to cross small bridges and struggled up the other side of each succeeding knoll. The hilltop has largely been turned into vineyards and orchards, with some undeveloped wild forest. We stopped from time to time on the crest of a hill to take in the stunning vistas south toward Mirabel-aux-Baronnies with Mount Ventoux in the distance, and then north into a small, heavily cultivated valley with stone farmhouses dotting the hillside. Animals are a part of life in this corner of the world. Cats, dogs, chickens, rabbits, donkeys and goats were visible in the farmyards.
We timed the ride so that we would arrive for lunch. What we hadn’t considered was the weather, which looked sunny when we started off but rapidly began to change to clusters of fast-moving clouds. In the distance we could make out patches of rain. We had pretty well made it to Vinsobres when one of the clouds opened up overhead and soaked us through.
By the time we descended to the village and rode up to the restaurant we had dried a bit in the sun, but the owner took a long look at us standing at the doorway dripping onto his floor.
“Sacrebleu!” he muttered under his breath, and then to us, “Restez-là, s’il vous plaît.” Off to the kitchen he went, returning with two towels.
We wiped ourselves down as best we could and then he seated us in the warm sun on the patio. We had tried this restaurant on an earlier occasion but found it closed. The couple who operated it had been away on their honeymoon. Today they were both here, she serving the tables, he seating people. However, they took time to talk affectionately to each other, and catch each other’s eye as they worked.
“He keeps patting her butt,” I said.
“Stop that,” Marie-Hélène said in a lowered voice.
“I’m not the one—”
“Gordon!” she glared at me.
“But . . .”
“But nothing!”
Our lunch arrived just then. Mine was a delicious chicken thigh with crackling skin, served with a purée of potatoes, and Marie-Hélène had a lettuce-and-sliced-tomato salad with large shavings of parmesan over the top. A small bottle of truffle-infused olive oil came with it. As we were in a well-known wine village, we ordered a demi-carafe of Vinsobre wine.
On the ride back to our house we managed to dodge any showers and enjoyed coasting down the steep hill that had given us so much work at the start.
Chapter 3
Buying French real estate
Real estate transactions in another country should be considered a matter of “assume nothing and ask questions about everything.” Buying our house seemed an easy enough task once we had found the one we wanted. We had spent two weeks in Nyons with a realtor looking through listings and visiting more than a dozen houses.
We became acquainted with stone ruins advertised as maison à restaurer, which meant that there was a lot of work to do and a lot of money to be spent. We had been warned about the amount of money involved in restoring an old stone house. “It’s cheaper to build a new house than restore a ruin,” was the advice. One house was built into a cliff face so that in rainy weather it offered its own running water across the floor. Another was a villa on the knoll of a hill with fabulous views. Then we noticed that all the trees leaned south from the force of the mistral wind. A delightful mas in the countryside had no water supply as the well had gone dry.