France's largest spring and a special Christmas

Bonjour!

Hope you had a nice Christmas and all the best for 2014, nice round number hey.

Earlier this week we visited the largest spring in France, and the fifth largest in the world I might add. What an amazing spot. It's at a place called Fontaine-de-Vaucluse. "Vallis Clausa" (the "enclosed valley") is where the name Vaucluse originally came from. This first photo shows the valley as the sun was setting, with the ruins of a castle in the foreground.

 

At the bottom of those cliffs you can see in the photo above is the source of the spring, as shown in the photo below. In 1946, the famous Jacques Cousteau almost killed himself as he tried to dive to the bottom of the spring. At a depth of about 100m a compressor used to fill his tank starting taking in its own exhaust fumes and produced carbon monoxide, he almost didn't make it back to the surface.

This calm, very blue body of water, only metres away, turns into rapids, as shown below. It is the source of a whole river, the River Sorgue.

And about a kilometer further down you can see the full force of this river as it flows over a weir....

At this point there is an interesting 15th century paper mill which is still making paper! You can see the water powered wheels which drive the pulping hammers.

We tried our luck at growing some winter crops. Well, in a way. This is another French tradition, where you plant some seeds on the 4th of December, let them grow, and then on Christmas day you place them on the dining table for good luck. We had a lot of fun in seeing whose seedlings had grown the most each day, we're a competitive bunch.

Just before Christmas we went to Saint Saturnin-les-Apt for their Christmas celebration night. The photo below, that Jane took, shows us walking through the back of the village along some medieval paths, Connor on my shoulders and Soph behind, the atmosphere was magical.

And then, not knowing what to expect, almost the whole village had turned out to see a procession of horses and carts and a couple of miniature trains take the kids for a ride up to the top of the village with all the mums and dads following behind. Here are our two on one of the trains, very excited.

In the church at Saint Saturnin was an impressive chreche. The French love their chreches. Interestingly chreches grew very much in popularity, in an underground way, during the Revolution as all churches were closed, the church was seen as a symbol of the old aristocracy. People would build there own chreches secretly in their homes as way of having their own little place of homage.

 

At the end of this special night in Saint Saturnin they had a fire works display which was pretty spectacular especially considering the back drop was some 13th century castle walls.

This is a classic. Jane took this photo whilst we where at the supermarket shopping for Christmas day. It's a packet of frozen duck foie gras marcarons, remembering foie gras is liver fat, I need not say any more.

 

Speaking of Christmas we had a very special one, just the four of us, and one turkey. Here we are opening presents first thing in the morning. 

 

We had originally planned to have the turkey roast for lunch, but after some skyping with the folks back home, champagne to toast the day, a large bottle of French Three Monts Beer, a few glasses of red, and watching most of the Michael Bubble Christmas Show it ended up being an early evening feast, well worth the wait I have to say. Jane did a wonderful job with the turkey, traditional stuffing and all. We had our own little party basically. Here we are, making another toast....

 

We then decided to go for an evening stroll, before too much alcohol was drunk. Jane took some lovely photos of the Christmas lights in the village. The photo below was of the little pottery shop. A Christmas day we will always treasure.

Au revoir pour le moment et heureuse nouvelle année!

 

(Good bye for now and happy new year!)

 

Jane, Sophie, Connor, et moi 

 

Merry Christmas and here's to you Dad

 

Merry Christmas to you,

Or "bonne fete" as everyone over here says to each other, which kind of means good celebration. Here is a photo of Connor and Santa Christmas, or " Pere Noel", eye to eye, when he came to visit the village here, big moment.

It's that time of the year when family is so important and for us this year is particularly so. My Dad has just had a major operation. I won't go into the details here, but I'm very glad to say it was a success, thank God. It has been tough being so far away through this. I feel so lucky and appreciative to have such a close, supportive family and extended family. Thank you so much. Here's to you Dad, well done, you're as tough as they come.

 

Below is a great photo of mum and dad with all their grandchildren, ex Soph and Connor of course, taken just before the operation. We miss all you guys back home so much.  

Yes, Santa came to our village, unbelievable. Here he is in the main square handing out lollies, and there is Connor in Jane's arms front and centre.

We then all walked up to the Salle de Fete, every town has one. It literally means "room of celebration". It's an annual tradition.

The Salle de Fete was a classic, it's straight out of the 1950's, fibro type walls, old school murals everywhere. The tradition is that all the village's kids from the local school come together to sing previously prepared songs, they are then given a hot chocolate drink, chocolate croissants, and some oranges, and then Santa gives out presents one by one to all the kids. Here is a photo of the kids singing, Sophie is up there in the second row. I love it how Santa hangs out and watches as well. Our little village must be a major priority for Santa, who would have thought.

 

Even Connor, who is too young for school, received a present.

Here is Soph, very happy with her present.

Here is Jane and the kids putting decorations on our "live" Christmas tree. I can't remember the last time we a live Christmas tree. The French really get into Christmas, it's great fun, and so much so for the kids. We have visited a few Christmas celebrations in various towns or villages, and this usually involves drinking vin chaud (hot wine), and I tell you, it's lovely stuff.

 

Last Saturday we visited the amazing Roman Theatre of Orange. This thing was built 2,000 years ago and still stages concerts. It was a real highlight for me. I remember The Cure played there earlier on in their career and it was just so cool, and in one of Peter Mayle's books he talks about going to see Pavarotti sing there one barmy summer's night. Below shows Soph as we headed up the seating rows.

 

Below is another photo of this really impressive structure. I had to test out the acoustics and let out a few baritone notes whilst I was there, even received a clap from some unknown tourists.

The town, Orange has a fascinating past. It used to be its own little country headed by the Princes of Orange and through marriage and wars the Princes of Orange ended up ruling many municipalities including land in Germany, The Netherlands and England. King William the Third of England who was Dutch was a sovereign Prince of Orange. He and various Princes of Orange are why there are the Orangemen in the North of Ireland, why there is Orange County in California, the Dutch Royal House of Orange-Nassau, the Orange Free State in South Africa, and even little ole Orange in New South Wales, Australia, and that's just to name a few.

We have been enjoying our picnics despite the chilly weather. Here we are in the famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine AOC (Appelation d'origine controlee) just outside of Orange.

And here are the kids after lunch, taking it easy. It was interesting to see the vines growing out of land covered in these large smooth rocks. At some point, a long, long time ago, I suppose all this land would have been covered by running water.

I've joined a French walker group, thanks to our neighbor here, Jean-Piere (pictured below along side myself), who is an avid walker. They had their last walk for the year last week which included walking up to this huge cave up in the limestone mountains near Saint- Saturnin-les-Apt. It was about a 12km walk that day.

 

Here is Maite, a good friend, admiring the view from the cave.

Here is a photo of the cave on approach. A couple of the guys had gone ahead to light a fire which you can just see in this photo. We barbequed our own meat, and everyone shared just about everything they had brought, including wine of course, and then there were sing-a-longs, followed by joke telling which of course went straight over my head. It was great fun and another truly memorable experience.

We have adopted another child, well not really. Our good friends Martin and Roxanne have two girls roughly the same age as our two and thanks to their Roxanne's idea we look after both littlies when the two oldest are at school on Monday and Tuesday and then on Thursday and Friday it's the other way around. It's fantastic. We get to two full kid free days, hooray! Here is Jane with gorgeous little Alkyoni and Connor.

 

Below is a photo of Martin and Roxanne's grand 18th century house, well, mansion really. They are renovating it and plan to have it running as a multi room B&B and live there at the same time. It's a huge, exciting project. Both of them are architects so they know what they are doing.

 

We visited the well known Gordes for the first time recently, here a photo of this stunning village on approach.

And another looking out across the Luberon valley from the other side of Gordes, the cobblestone streets were full of rustic character.

 

 

A little while ago we helped Gilles, the owner of our home here, with picking the olive trees in the backyard. Despite it being less than 5 degrees that day we had a ball. Some vin chaud (hot wine) would have gone down a treat. New tradition possibly? Here is Gilles picking away with a bit of help from Soph and Connor.

 

We had a break for lunch and here we are having a hot coffee following. From left to right, is a Stan and Ingrid, the American couple we met at Gilles house, Gilles and his wife Louise, and Jane.   

After heading to the olive pressing co-op with Gilles and him saying that if we like we could pick some more for ourselves, I thought yes, has to be done. So below is a photo of the 5 kilos of olives Jane, Soph, Connor, and I picked.

 

And from that we received about one litre of olive oil. So we've been using it ever since in our cooking, with great satisfaction I might add.

 

After the Saturday markets at Apt one day we headed part way up the Luberon mountain range where we had a picnic at this glorious spot - we could see the the snow capped Alps! This is a photo of the hilltop town of Saignon above Apt, with Mount Ventoux, which we climbed recently, well almost, way off in the distance.

Recently we went for a nice long drive west of here, primarily to find ruins of the 12th century castle where the Count of Provence, Ramon Berenguer IV brought up his four daughters, including Eleanor of Provence, Jane's great (x 18) grandmother! It was at the top of a prominent hill, as shown below, overlooking the small ancient town of St-Maime.

We made it to the top of that hill, and had a picnic. What a spot it was, beautiful day, and surrounded by history we felt we had some sort of connection with, very special. I took this picture looking down at the Jane and the kids from the top of the ruins. That was the castle chapel on the top right and Dauphin, another ancient hilltop town in the distance.

Here is Soph and Connor walking over the ruins. On the right you can see a massive wall of the castle that has collapsed.

And right at the top, here is Jane and Soph in front of what remains of one of the castle's defense towers.

We then drove onto the nearby town of Forcalquier where Count Ramon of Provence ruled from. Right in the centre of town next to the 12th century Notre-Dame Cathedral, was a large monument dedicated to two of Raymond's daughters, Margaret of Provence who married King Louis IX of France and Eleanor of Provence, as shown below, it says: "To the memory of Eleanor de Prouvenco Fourcauquie, the wife of Henry The Third King of England."

On the way back from Aix-en-Provence we visited beautiful St-Remy-de-Provence. It has the amazing ruins of the Roman settlement Glanum on the outskirts of town. The Romans were an impressive lot. It was built about 2,000 years ago, but the design of the village was so sophisticated. For example the main road through town, as shown below, had a guttering system that carried all waste water away and allowed the locals to walk around town without getting their togas and sandals muddied.

This is what the archeologists believe Glanum would have looked like around 50 BC, around the same time as Julius Caesar was conquering his way through the south of France.

Saint Remy was where the famous astrologist Michel Nostradamus was born and also where Van Gogh stayed in a convalescent home, at his own request, for a year, from May 1889 to May 1890. He painted many of his famous paintings here including The Starry Night, The Irises, Self-Portrait and the painting below of a nearby olive grove, "Les oliviers". This plaque is positioned where they think Van Gogh would have roughly sat when he painted "Les oliviers".

And just to finish, here is a picture of Soph in front of the little olive grove next to our house here in the village.

Joyeux Noël et le meilleur pour vous et votre famille

(Merry Christmas and the very best to you and your family).

 

Jane, Sophie, Connor et moi.

 

 

 

Aix, Marseille and Mount Ventoux

Salut!

We've just had a week in Aix-en-Provence and boy what a place. It's a university town, with a very large "old quarter" and so much history, from Roman baths to the Counts of Provence (including Jane's ancestor, more on that a bit later) to the famous French impressionist painter Paul Cezanne.

A highlight from the week was our day trip to Marseille. It's France's second biggest city, sits beautifully on the Mediterranean coast surrounded by scenic mountains, and is a mixture of so much, with a strong African influence with the food and people, and modern buildings with architectural flair amongst ancient forts, palaces, and churches. Below is a photo I took of the new MuCEM museum with the sun setting just as we were making our way back to the car.

Below is another photo taken towards the end of the day. That's the 12th-century Fort St Jean in the foreground and Marseille's amazing harbor behind it.

We had promised Sophie an ice cream at some stage and of course Connor had to have one too...

The harbor is the city's centre piece, and probably has been since the Phocaeans landed here in 600 BC....

Back in Aix, .....here is a statue of the man himself Paul Cezanne. I visited the studio that he used during the last years of his life. It was a memorable experience. It was just the guide and I. It felt like this lovely lady was showing me her father's painting studio while he was out of town. The studio is basically untouched since the day he died. His coats were hanging on the wall, the vases that you see in many of his still lives were there, and you can see some of the blue paint along on the bottom of his easel from when he painted his famous The Bathers series, just before he died.

Cezanne painted Mount Saint-Victoire many times. It sits there majestically about 20 kms out of Aix. I strolled up to the Painters' Ground which is about 30 minutes walk from the centre of town, it was where Cezanne would often go to paint Saint-Victoire. This was one of his paintings of the mountain......

And this was the view of the Saint-Victoire from the Painters Ground...

That same day we drove out to the base of Saint-Victoire and had a little picnic, beautiful spot. At this point the kids were sick of having their photo taken, hence no smiles for the camera from those two. We met a French guy there who I'd say was about 50 years old and he had just returned from walking to the top of the mountain and back in one and a half hours! He does it two or three times a week, inspiring stuff.

 

As another example of the amazing scenery in Provence, later that day we headed down to the seaside town of Cassis. It was nice to see the ocean again and wow what a back drop. 

 

We woke up one morning in Aix to see snow again. This photo was taken from our  bedroom balcony. This was totally unexpected as Aix is about an hour south from our place in the Luberon and lower in altitude I imagine. You can see the spire of the Eglise St-Jean-de-Malte in the distance.

The snowfall made the front page of the regional "La Provence" paper as shown below where it says "La neige est annoncée aujourd'hui" or in English, "snow is announced today".

 

Here are the kids in the apartment having some fun. Sophie had put her spare ballerina dress on Connor and they were having a dance, had to take a snap. 

 

 

Back to the  Eglise St-Jean-de-Malte mentioned above. Below is a photo taken of its stunning interior above the altar. According to Jane's family tree Queen Eleanor of Provence is Jane's great (x 18) great grandmother. She appears twice on the family tree, on different sides. Eleanor's father was Raymond Berenguer IV, Count of Provence (1195 – 1245). Looking at the stain glass window below, at the top you have a picture of God the Father, and then just below God on the left is a picture of Raymond Berenguer IV, flanked by Eleanor's sister Beatrice of Provence. Hard to believe I know. It's totally fascinating to me. To think, I married royalty! Well there are just a few generations in between I know :).

And just to the left of the alter is the tomb of Raymond Berengeur IV (on the left), Raymond's father Alfonso II of Provence (in the middle), and Beatrice of Provence (on the right). It's actually a reconstruction as the original was destroyed during the revolution (1789-1799).

Here is a close up of the statue of Raymond Berengeur IV Count of Provence, Jane's great (x 19) grandfather.......

How's this, Raymond had five daughters and each one of them married a king. Eleanor of Provence (pictured below), being one of the daughters, was sent to Britain when she was all of twelve to marry King Henry III of England.

Back to the present day, and here is Sophie (she's eating some cookies we just bought)at the Aix markets whilst we pondered whether to spend 28 euros per kilo on those huge mushrooms you can see. Instead we went for the orange looking mushrooms further up the table on the other side of the avocados, great selection.

We were invited for dinner at the home of the owners of the house we are renting here, Gilles and Louise, and there we met their friends, an American couple, Stan and Ingrid. It was a great night, lovely food, great company, with a highlight definitely being the home made verveine liqueur we had as a night cap. 

The rustic and stylish architecture throughout Aix was a real pleasure to see, here are some examples. This is the Hotel d'Albertas, built in 1707....

 

This is just a random laneway representative of so many through out the town... 

 

The French know how to do doors. This is one of the many along Cours Mirabeau, the famous main avenue of Aix.

Time for a coffee and some sun......

Here are the kids enjoying a ride on Santa's sleigh. Christmas is pretty big in France. About the only difference I can see at this point is Santa goes by the name of  “Père Noël” (Father Christmas), that and the fact that you are meant to have thirteen different deserts on Christmas eve - I'll give it a go :).

 

Jane took this photo of us on Cours Mirabeau with some of the Christmas decorations in the background. I think that was the evening we had some vin chaud, which is that delicious warm red wine that has a bunch of herbs in it along with a good splash of Cognac.

On the way down to Aix we visited the 11th century Abbaye de Silvicane. It was pretty special, as it was totally intact. The acoustics in some of the grand rooms were fantastic, I couldn't help but sing a few operatic tunes, just to test it out. Below is a picture of Jane and Soph having a race in front of the Abbaye, leaving Connor way behind to stare at the fish in this elegant and very long pond fed by a near by spring.

We found the source of the spring about 200 metres from the Abbeye and it made a perfect picnic spot. It was one of the main reasons why they built the Abbeye in this location.

Yesterday we climbed Mount Ventoux, well almost, I'd say we were about 100-200 metres from its 1,900m summit, it was getting late and we didn't want to head back down the mountain in the dark. Mount Ventoux is famous for its inclusion in the Tour de France each year and is the tallest mountain in the Provence region. We met this really nice French guy at about the time we decided to head back, his daughter's boyfriend was a Kiwi! He took this photo of us. Sophie had fallen asleep at that point, big day.

At about 5km from the peak we were not allowed to drive any further, due to the snow and risk of black ice I suppose, so out popped the pram and the back pack. Here is Jane in fine athletic form pushing Soph up the Mount. The scenery was amazing. We could see the setting sun reflecting off the Mediterranean way off in the distance.

On the road up there was so much graffiti from Tour de France spectators showing  support for their favourite teams and riders. For a stretch there we saw a number of kangaroos spray painted on the road. The photo below shows Jane and pram and some of the graffiti...

It was so nice to be out in the wilderness. Where we are on the edge of the Luberon is ideal for us as we have this type of relatively uninhabited country in one direction and "civilization" in the other.

Bye for now.

 

Tous les meilleurs voeux et bonne chance dans le monde (all the best wishes and good luck in the world)

 

Jane, Soph, Connor, et moi