Hello? Beautiful?!
Everywhere you look in Provence, like the village of Gordes in the Luberon, for example, it's a sight to behold.
Just spent a week staying in a Gite, close to both St Remy de Provence and Les Baux, and everywhere we went, everywhere I looked, I felt like Meg Ryan in that movie French Kiss where she's walking down a street with Kevin Kline and just stops in her tracks, saying, "Hello? Beautiful?!"
But it's not all Plane Trees and Umbrella Pines; not all Wild Thyme and Roman Antiquities. In these mediaeval towns and villages there is such a strong sense that everything would be perfect if not for the automobile, and streets clogged with cars and noisy, dirty traffic took the lustre off somewhat. Places like Les Baux, you have to park down below and walk in, but in Arles, for example, not only were there too many cars, but they tend to park all over what passes for pavement, making life very difficult, especially with a pushchair.
And Avignon, beautiful as it surely is, was spoiled not only by cars but by graffiti, on every available wall. And if there's one thing I can't stand. I would rather see the remnants of some tagger's face, smashed into a bloody pulp against a stone wall, than his moronic, pointless, ugly signature. Still, we went in the Palais du Papes and onto the Pont, singing the song with the children and getting rained upon.
We turned up in Arles, the city centre was closed off. Parking some distance away (which we don't mind) we walked into the town to find Bodegas everywhere and wall-to-wall Paella and Mariachi-type bands. It was the last day of the Feria, the Easter bullfighting festival. My favourite moment of the holiday was this.
We've just eaten Paella (her) and a Bull Chop (moi) underneath a mounted Bull's head in a restaurant on the square, and we walk up the hill towards the Roman part of town.
And here in the South of France, where Van Gogh and others had their gaffs, on the steps of the ancient Roman amphitheatre, where the bullfight is going on, is one of those Mariachi type bands, lined up on the steps, surrounded by punters eating Paella, and they're playing Madonna's "Like a Virgin."
Just spent a week staying in a Gite, close to both St Remy de Provence and Les Baux, and everywhere we went, everywhere I looked, I felt like Meg Ryan in that movie French Kiss where she's walking down a street with Kevin Kline and just stops in her tracks, saying, "Hello? Beautiful?!"
But it's not all Plane Trees and Umbrella Pines; not all Wild Thyme and Roman Antiquities. In these mediaeval towns and villages there is such a strong sense that everything would be perfect if not for the automobile, and streets clogged with cars and noisy, dirty traffic took the lustre off somewhat. Places like Les Baux, you have to park down below and walk in, but in Arles, for example, not only were there too many cars, but they tend to park all over what passes for pavement, making life very difficult, especially with a pushchair.
And Avignon, beautiful as it surely is, was spoiled not only by cars but by graffiti, on every available wall. And if there's one thing I can't stand. I would rather see the remnants of some tagger's face, smashed into a bloody pulp against a stone wall, than his moronic, pointless, ugly signature. Still, we went in the Palais du Papes and onto the Pont, singing the song with the children and getting rained upon.
We turned up in Arles, the city centre was closed off. Parking some distance away (which we don't mind) we walked into the town to find Bodegas everywhere and wall-to-wall Paella and Mariachi-type bands. It was the last day of the Feria, the Easter bullfighting festival. My favourite moment of the holiday was this.
We've just eaten Paella (her) and a Bull Chop (moi) underneath a mounted Bull's head in a restaurant on the square, and we walk up the hill towards the Roman part of town.
And here in the South of France, where Van Gogh and others had their gaffs, on the steps of the ancient Roman amphitheatre, where the bullfight is going on, is one of those Mariachi type bands, lined up on the steps, surrounded by punters eating Paella, and they're playing Madonna's "Like a Virgin."
posted by Anonymous at
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
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