A Week in Provence: Day 2

We had a busy day. First up was a stop at the open air market in the village of Cucuron. I love the name Cucuron (except recently, when the laptop decided that it needed an absolutely crushing blow on the "u" key to even think about producing a "u"). In any case, as always with a French market, we bought too much. There was that fat pork sausage we got from the stout Corsican, some apples, lettuce, and Belgian endive from the green grocer, then of course some olives, of which there are always way more different plastic bins full than you can choose from. Then cheese, fresh goat with herbs, and then some ravioli stuffed with cepes, which would be porcini except for that we're in France, not Italy.

Cucuron quickly became my favorite market square in the whole wide world. Smack in the center of it is a stone lined "pond" around which are planted huge plane trees. The market forms around this in the shade of the trees (well, in summer anyway, in November the leaves were falling faster than the dollar).

Cucuron was the village seen in the movie, "A Good Year". Not a bad flick. I've seen it twice.

After putting away our culinary treasures, we hopped into the Citroen and were off to Menerbes. You know this place if you follow Peter Mayle. He choose Menerbes as the first place to rest his typewriter when he got a little tired of writing ad copy on it.

It was not easy arriving at Menerbes. This is road fixing time. Deviations were everywhere. Speaking of deviations, as we consulted our maps in desperation we looked up and bam, there was a rainbow that seemed to emanate from the Chateau of the Marqis de Sade above the village of Lacoste! Mon Dieu! (Perhaps you can see the rainbow in the picture. Not easy, but trust me, it's there.)

The Chateau is now owned by Pierre Cardin. He's fixing it up.

Anyway, Menerbe is spread out on a ridge with great views of the valley. On top is a chateau with a wine cellar and truffle education area. There's also a little restaurant that's open in the season in the courtyard of the Chateau. Sadly, it is closed in November, because we really, really wanted the truffle omelet. But, we found a single restaurant open, Cafe Veranda, and it had one of those panoramic terraces too, so we sat gawking and ate on the veranda. I had a plate filled with salmon fume, salad, and fois gras. Martha had the plat du jour, a nice slab of salmon on a ragout of vegetables. Not a bad lunch.

We shared a quarter-liter pitcher of white wine. I left impressed. It had a somewhat floral nose but dry finish, like a Sauvignon--there was a lot going on in the glass for a house wine.

Then, after a short ride, the surprise of the day came into view. Oppède Le Vieux. Old Oppède. The abandoned one. High on a ridge a progression of monmental buildings seem to flow down the hillside. Charmingly. Yes, a destructive 1731 earthquake made the peasants think along the lines of "why should I, with my wrecked house, spend time fixing it up when it's so darn far to my fields?" So they settled on lower land. By 1910 even the low lying parts of it were abandoned. The new town is miles away. But artists came during the war, refugees from the German occupied north including Antoine St. Exupery, and repopulated it. Now there are artists and tourists--during the season. In early November the old village reclaims its right to be the romantic ruin it is. Deserted. Quiet except for sheep bells and yapping dogs from the valleys. An amazing place, Oppède Le Vieux. That's the old church in the picture. If you're here in the off-off season, be sure to visit. The parking lot is bigger than the ones at many football stadiums. I can't imagine the crowds. There was one other car when we parked in the afternoon.

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Notes: The pictures in this post are clickable. See them a decent size!

Peter Mayle figures in a lot of this post. He wrote "A Good Year" and evidenly lives in Lourmarin, where I'm staying (or he did in 2008). I didn't know that. I found out from The Provence Post, where Mayle tells us his favorite eateries in the area.