On a quick visit to Marseille yesterday. Freezing cold, but beautiful, as always when there is a mistral. It comes with mixed blessings. We also drove to Notre Dame de la Garde. What a view! And beautiful inside.
This time we did not go to the old town at all, instead we toured the shopping & market areas, until the cold got the better of us and we went to look at the Marseilles city museum, then for lunch in the old harbour. Clearly not an ideal day for shopping!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is a place where the sorrows of the world seem far, far away. Not the joys, since we know how to enjoy life around here. But we tend not to worry too much. Even if we obviously follow the news. We read and debate about the independence of Catalunya, we comment on Trump and Brexit, we try to avoid politics but somehow always end up discussing it anyway, and we are keenly aware of the treaths of climate change. It hasn’t rained since April, and this is the driest summer in recorded history (which means around a hundred years). Day temperatures still rise to around +22-23 in the afternoons, even if nights are cold. At the end of October! Ce n’est pas normal!
We have joined a group of friends who go for hikes every Sunday, shorter or longer. The extreme drought is visible everywhere, as is the fact that there still is water around. Little creeks flow down the Luberon from some of the many springs, but the water level is much lower than normally.
One of the old bridges over the creek is built as a shell. This is a part of the old pilgrim roads to Santiago de Compostela that criss cross this area of France. The path runs through the Vallée de l’Aiguebrun, where there are signs of age old human presence everywhere. Prehistoric graves on a cliff, the remains of a small gaul village next to them.
Not far away lies Fort de Buoux, a fortress that played an important role for the defense of the area during the middle ages. But it was used much earlier, not in the least during Roman times. It is perched high on a hilltop so small and narrow that the only solution if enemies managed to drive the defense all the way up was to jump. Or use a rope. Or try to reach the secret staircase which leads away from the fort to the south. The fort was abandoned during the reign of Louis XIV, but the buildings were still in use another hundred years, until the inhabitants moved to the present village of Buoux around 1780.
The whole area is totally unprotected, and the staircase is very steep and partly narrow. No running! It is hard to imagine how people could have fled this way without risking their lives!
The forest path above the valley of Aiguebrun offers stunning views and hides some much more recent wonders. The pyramid and the birthday cake are both built by a professor of the English language, whom some of the members of our group called ”pretty mad but also brilliant”. He had been their teacher at school.
For hungry and tired hikers there are plenty of nice places to eat and rest.
”Le Pays d’Aigues, du côté Sud du Luberon, est le Pays de l’Eau. C’est la zone du Luberon qui compte le plus de sources.” So, this water country. Or water land.
Water is indeed, surprisingly perhaps, a really important factor in this area, notably ground water. It hasn`t rained properly since April, but still the area looks very green. The wines, the bushes and the trees show remarkable resilience. They are still green, turning yellow and red now because of the approaching autumn, but they have not suffered notably from the extremely long dry period. And people we speak to here say no, this is not the worst they have seen. It can be, and has been, even drier. Vegetation in the area has been here before, and can easily put up with one year of drought. If it continues for many years to c9me I don`t know what will happen, but for now, its OK. Given there will be rain during winter of course. Old wines can push their roots down as deep as 15-20 meters, so it is no surprise they survive. But apparently trees and bushes also have deep roots.
In Lourmarin it is rare to find cellars under the houses. This is because there is water everywhere. Even now, water8s flowing in some of the little creeks and ditches. In the house where we are now staying there has been water in the well all the t8me, and it is not very deep.
One might expect that we by now would have seen most places, found all the really nice markets and learned about all there is to learn about this place. But no. There is more to discover and learn all the time.
Last spring we found a splendid wine “negociant”, Tardieu-Laurent, just outside Lourmarin. They do not make much noise about themselves locally, which is probably why so few people have heard about them here. Among wine experts they are well known. They have excellent wines from the Rhone area. We spent a most pleasant hour in their wine cellar, testing wines directly from the barrels. Never done anything like that before, really interesting. It gives a hint of what it is like to taste young wines professionally. What it might be like to be a wine taster.
Last Sunday we went for a walk in the area around Goult on the northern side of the Luberon. This is a village we have driven through before, but never really visited. Charming, built almost entirely of ”pierre sèche”, dry stones. Most houses are in very good shape, but a lot of them are clearly already closed. Secondary houses for wealthy Parisians and foreigners was the dry verdict from one of our local walking companions. Which, unfortunately, means that the village is pretty dead in winter. A shame, since it is really pretty and has a lot of character.
Carrières de Lumières this year shows Brueghel-Bosch-Archimboldo. I found it splendid, but our two year old grandson thought it was scary. I suspect that was mainly because it was dark when we first walked in, and the music is very loud. Or then he didn’t like the dragons and the funny birds and….. The way the paintings are presented and displayed is, however, truly amazing and very impressive. It is like being invited into another, long since passed world, full of amazing characters, some of them human, some of them pure fantasy, some of them actually a bit scary. Everything comes close. The buildings, the animals, the flowers, the food and all other things on sale on the streets, the expressions on peoples’ faces.
Nexts years show is Picasso. Another treat.
O S M A F Frankenhaeuser 
