Mayle - My twenty-five years in Provence: reflections on then and now

ALSO BY PETER MAYLE

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A Year in Provence

These Are Borzoi Books
Published in New York by Alfred A. Knopf

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright 2018 by Escargot Copyrights Ltd.

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mayle, Peter, author.

Title: My twenty-five years in Provence : reflections on then and now / Peter Mayle.

Description: New York : Knopf, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018001245 (print) | LCCN 2018014861 (ebook) | ISBN 9780451494535 (ebook) | ISBN 9780451494528 (hardback)

Subjects: LCSH : Mayle, PeterHomes and hauntsFranceProvence. | Provence (France) Social life and customs. | Provence (France) Description and travel. | Mayle, PeterHomes and hauntsFranceProvence. | BISAC : TRAVEL / Essays & Travelogues. | TRAVEL / Europe / France. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.

Classification: LCC DC 611. P 961 (ebook) | LCC DC 611. P 961 M 35 2018 (print) | DDC 944.9/084dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018001245

Cover design and illustration by Nick Misani

Ebook ISBN9780451494535

v5.3_r2.1

a

Contents

One

Early Days

It started with a lucky break in the weather. My wife, Jennie, and I had escaped the rigors of the English summer to spend two idyllic weeks on the Cte dAzur, which according to popular rumor enjoys three hundred days of sunshine a year. But not that year. It rained, hard and often. The beach umbrellas hung in sodden clumps. The plagistes, those bronzed young men who patrol the beaches, were huddled in their huts, their shorts soaked. Cafs along the Promenade des Anglais were filled with forlorn parents and fractious children who had been promised a day splashing about in the sea. In the International Herald Tribune, there was news of a heat wave in England. As we prepared to leave Nice, we hoped the heat would last until we got home.

A situation like this requires some kind of consolation. We considered going across the border to Italy, hopping on the ferry to Corsica, or making the long drive down to Barcelona in time for dinner. But in the end, we decided on exploring France. Instead of taking the autoroutes, we would stay on the smaller secondary roads. Even in the rain, we thought, they would be prettier and more interesting than joining the procession of trucks and caravans on the main highway to the north. And besides, our experience of France had been confined to Paris and the coast. This would be virgin territory.

In those days, long before GPS, we used maps. And one of the few familiar names we found was Aix-en-Provence. There would be restaurants in Aix. There might even be sunshine. Off we went.

The Route Nationale 7, I think, is the French equivalent of Route 66, which the old song taught us was where to go to get our kicks. The kicks on the RN 7 used to be at their height each year in July and August, when most of Paris took what was then the main road down to the south. It, too, had its famous song, performed by Charles Trenet, the lyrics dripping with le soleil, le ciel bleu, les vacances, and the promise of wonderful times.

The reality didnt quite live up to the song. The RN 7 is a perpetually busy road, and was filled on that particular day with many of the thousands of trucks that crisscross France, often driven by very large men who look down on passing cars with a faintly menacing air. Overtake me at your peril, they seemed to be thinking. And if you value your life, dont change lanes too suddenly.

Gradually, the rain was beginning to thin out, and by the time we reached Aix, the gray sky was showing hopeful fragments of blue; to celebrate, we decided to go to the oldest brasserie in town, Les Deux Garons. Founded in 1792, this is more of a historic monument than a mere bar. Past customers include Czanne and Zola, Picasso and Pagnol, Piaf and Camus. The terrace overlooks the Cours Mirabeau, the most handsome street in Aix, lined with plane trees and dotted with fountains, the perfect spot to watch the passing crowd. There was a moment when the normal air of conviviality had been disturbed by a shooting in one of the toilets. A vile rumor that the culprit was a waiter who had been deprived of his tip was found to be untrue, and life returned to normal.

Enjoying a glass of ros, we took another look at the map, where we found a scattering of villages on the northern side of the Luberon mountains. This looked promising, and it was more or less on our way back to England. After a proper Provenal lunch of rabbit in mustard sauce and an ultra-fine apple tart, served by a waiter who could have come out of central castingwhite apron, generous belly, and memorably luxuriant moustachewe felt ready for any mountain we might come across.

The further we drove from Aix, the more blue sky we saw pushing away the clouds. There was no sun yet, but it was turning into a pleasant afternoon, made even more pleasant by the change in the countryside once we were well away from Aix. It was beautiful, spacious, often quite deserted. Fields of vines and fields of sunflowers easily outnumbered buildings, and what buildings we saw were charmingweather-beaten stone, faded roof tiles, usually shaded by a couple of venerable plane trees or an alley of cypresses. This, as we later discovered, was typical Provenal countryside. We loved it then, and we love it now.

Every so often, the empty fields gave way to a village, with its church tower presiding over a jumble of stone houses. Several of these had the days washing hanging out of upstairs windows to dry, which we took as a sign that the locals, who are invariably expert weather forecasters, were anticipating the sun. And sure enough, as we were entering what was described on the map as the Natural Regional Park of the Luberon, out it came, bright and optimistic, making everything look sharp and clean, as though the landscape had been etched against the sky. Those gray, rainy days in Nice might have happened on a different planet.

By now, we were getting distant glimpses of the Luberon. It was long and low and its mountains did not seem all that craggy or threatening. They were comfortable mountains. The Luberon even had a road that seemed to go all the way through from the south side, where we were, to the north. We picked up this road outside the village of Lourmarin, and headed north, on what turned out to be the only straight piece of tarmac for several miles. Then came the bends. It was the first time I have ever felt seasick in a car. To make matters worse, the road was narrow, often with a steep wall of rock on one side and a sharp drop on the other. And there was oncoming traffic. Motorcycles were easy enough to dodge, even though they were using the road like a racetrack. Cars could just about pass if we squeezed up against the rock wall. Trailers and motor homes were the challenge, particularly on those bends. We squeezed until we were almost scraping the rock. We sucked in our stomachs and held our breath. Jennie very wisely shut her eyes.