Put the guidebooks aside in Provence
Happy accidents make weekend memorable
AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE — From the sun-dappled boulevards of Aix to the stunning 14th-century papal palace in Avignon, to the hilltop castle ruins of Les Baux, there is no shortage of sights to see in Provence.
And those attractions are lovely, to be sure.
But the standout memories of a weekend road trip through southern France couldn’t have come about through any TripAdvisor review or Lonely Planet recommendation.
Sometimes when travelling, one has to leave room for happy accidents — like stumbling upon a small-town street party or an open-air big-band concert.
On one blustery day, we’d been exploring the ruins of a medieval castle atop a rocky cliff in the village of Les-Baux-de-Provence. The views of olive groves, vineyards and the Alpilles range were breathtaking, but so, too, were the fierce and frigid mistral winds from which we had zero shelter.
We ventured a short way downhill to the village of Saint-Remy for something to eat.
We turned a corner and came across a crowd gathered at the town’s grocery store. Sausages were crackling on a grill outside the store’s sliding glass doors. Two teenage girls were playing covers of American pop songs on acoustic guitars.
Fearing we’d intruded on a private party, I asked one man what was going on. He explained a twoyear project to repair the town’s roads was finally complete. Shops and restaurants in the town’s centre had suffered while the streets were being torn up, so it was a grand reopening of sorts.
That’s when the wine started flowing. Bottles of rose — the region’s main wine offering — were chilling in waist-high barrels full of ice and the residents were only too happy to share with a trio of Canadians.
The hostess at a Saint Remy restaurant suggested we visit a Saturday market in nearby Arles, which we did the next morning. The shabby-chic streets of the town were choked with locals on their weekly shopping excursions.
Later, we drove to Avignon to see its main attraction, the Palais des Papes. The imposing gothic structure, built in the 1300s, was the seat of the Catholic Church during a period of upheaval in Rome.
After our visit to the palace, we stopped in the main square and heard a full concert band playing upbeat jazz standards. We’d later learn it was the University of Notre Dame’s concert band, which was on a European tour.
I turned to my friends and said: “We picked a good weekend to visit, didn’t we?”