Avignon, Carpentras & Beaumes-de -Venise

Entrance to the house in Carpentras

Last May when Nat and I were in Carpentras for a wedding, we booked an airbnb at an old farmhouse. The owners were a couple in their seventies who, despite our arrival at 2am or so, were out at the corner of the driveway (shown in the video above) with flashlights, showing us the way in. Their cheerful kindness (he also helped me turn the ignition of the rental car off) continued throughout our stay and once back in Boston, I emailed Claudette to ask if she had any advice about my thought of spending some of the winter in the South of France. To say that she was helpful is to simplify the many emails filled with suggestions, contacts, ideas, and most welcomed, enthusiasm and warmth that were embedded in every communication. Without her encouragement, I may not have made the trip, and it was she who originally recommended Aix-en-Provence.
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Claudette and Jacques' house last May

This past weekend, I was invited to visit with them and meet Claudette's sister, who lives in Paris and hadn't been there for five years. At first I told Claudette I'd come for the day as they'd likely want to spend time together without me, and because I didn't know how long the peanut brain would last speaking French, particularly with people I didn't know so well, but she told me it was good that I'd be there, and that her sister spoke good English, so overnight it was going to be.

Being a pedestrian, renting a car has become an opportunity to see another new place to which I might not otherwise have access. As it was an unusually rainy Saturday, I decided to stop along the way in Avignon, choosing the Palais des Papes, an earlier version of the Vatican. I'll be honest, it was mostly chosen for its large indoor space and proximity to an underground parking lot. But when I saw that looming, stone building, I got a flashback to Salisbury Cathedral with June and Carin, and the chill that stayed in my bones for many a day. So instead, chose what was perhaps a worse course, making wrong turns in the rain with the map open to the Collection Lambert, which was advertised as a contemporary art gallery with works by Picasso, Ellsworth Kelly and Sol LeWitt among others. 

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Palais des Papes behemoth, Avignon

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White on white on white, Collection Lambert

Instagrammable exhibits can annoy me, but this was pretty fun

The gallery holding the collection was unfortunately closed, so I wandered around a very nicely renovated old empire building taking in exhibits about wind. This took all of 25 minutes, leading me to a restaurant on the other side of the courtyard for a lunch of dorade, which seems to be the chicken of Provence, and very good aubergine. I was seated in a small room with three other tables, all occupied. Directly ahead was a mother-in-law who was less refined than you might expect at a museum restaurant, who drank three glasses of white wine within the time I was there and didn't draw breath, sitting next to her daughter-in-law, who was tidy, compact and had a very large engagement ring. The mother-in-law directed all conversation, which she was generating, to her son, who was sitting across from her. The daughter-in-law, whose eye caught mine a few times, seemed to be quietly apologizing while asking whether I knew her pain. The older woman actually did remind me significantly of someone I once knew, so I smiled, but then opened up my phone, which I didn't really want to do, to not appear eavesdropping, or actually joining in the conversation as the table was so close.

I'll admit, I was nervous about showing up at this house of people I didn't know, yet had commited to. I remembered Claudette as chatty, her English about as good as my French, and Jacques quieter but not unfriendly. When I opened the door, it was into their dining room, the three of them along with a family friend named Nathalie who lives in Marseille, sitting at the table after a recently fininshed lunch. I had a feeling of both barging in and being way too much the center of atttention, with everyone jumping up and wanting to make and give me things, as though they had been waiting for me. One of my goals at the moment is to worry less about these sorts of things, rather to be vaguely thoughtful and polite and then let people do what they do, which proved to be the right path in this instance. 
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Dining room table . How about those 11/2 foot thick walls?

Flashing back to our first trip to the Netherlands, we arrived in the most picturesque town of Utrecht at about noon after an overnight flight. While Nat chose to sleep, Philip and I were excited to be there and went for lunch outside on the canal. We were tired, yes, and conversation came slowly. I was struck by our gold booted neighbor who spoke with his friend for the two hours we were there. They never stopped and had so many back and forths in a gentle and easy kind of way. Since then I've noticed how common that is in most European countries to have these long ranging conversations, and less so in the US. It's certainly not my strength as I usually have this bullying feeling that there's something I should be doing that I'm behind on. 
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I may not be able to to find my house keys today, but I can find a photo from 2017. Gold toes and friend who chatted for hours in Utrecht.

So on Saturday in Carpentras, I sat down with Claudette, Jacques, Marie-Hélène and Nathalie around 3 pm and while we moved from dining room to living room and back to dining room, essentially we didn't get up or stop talking until about 10pm. They were all so very lovely and made me feel welcome. We talked about a wide array of things, helping to at least temporarily vanquish any prior inadequacy about being conversationally illiterate. It is painfully hard to talk about things that are complicated, using the pitiful amount of French I have, but somehow we muddled through; they were patient with my slowness and fumbling, and once in a while Marie-Hélène, whose English was stronger, would help out, or even switch to English for a few minutes. But by the night time, I really couldn't understand, or say, anything, and felt bad asking them to repeat and repeat, so crawled off to a comfy bed in a dark room, head spinning but happy.

The weather was to be better on Sunday and I thought of having breakfast with these kind folks and taking my leave to explore some of the region. But when Marie-Hélène, who is head of a university of international architecture in Paris, asked if I'd like to go to the  Inguimbertine, I said oui, and off she, Jacques and I went to this combination library and museum that had recently been renovated, the design having being done by a friend of hers. The old library was closed, but we had a look around and then had a wander at a high quality Provencal junk market/broconte (new word), to which I will surely go back when I have needs. We finished with a coffee at a confisserie that sells some kind of fruitish candy for which the area is famous. ​
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Main stairway, Inguimbertine in Carpentras

Marie-Hélène and Jacques, Inguimbertine in Carpentras

Recently renovated cafeteria, Inguimbertine in Carpentras. Love this room.

Jacques, with Marie-Hélène and me in the reflection at the confisserie

Back to the house we went and I said OK, time to go and Claudette said stay for lunch, and so I did, a fine one with good French cheese and baguette and a salad of mache grown around the corner, jarred artichoke hearts, avocado and tomato, a combination I will surely replicate. After that, I was off with hugs and gratitude and such good feeling for these wonderful people who had offered me their lives, food and home, a promise to stay in touch, to return.

The evening prior, we had enjoyed a Muscat from Beaumes-des-Venise, so I decided to do a quick leg stretch zipping over there for a 3K loop before getting home for a 6pm call. There were many nice things to see, definitely on the list for a return trip.
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Gangly vined vineyard, Beaumes-de-Venise

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Pruned back vineyard, they look like witches fingers to me, Beaumes-de-Venise.

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Chicken coop, Dentelles in the background, Beaumes-de-Venise.

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I so love this land, Beaumes-de-Venise

Airing laundry made me think about how the expression came about. It does seem ulnerable somehow to put ones sheets out. Beaumes-de-Venise

Zip zip zip in the car back to Aix, arriving at the rental garage at 5:30 with enough time to get back home for my call. Office closed, garage door open, down I go, but by the time I walk out, the garage door has closed and doesn't respond to the pushed button. I run around, looking for another way out. One red door, I take it, go up some stairs, find myself on a roof surrounded by walls and buildings with no exit. Door back to garage is locked, I'm stuck on the roof. 

The birds have begun squawking which I know means darkness is coming soon. Around and around I go, looking for an out. I climb some exterior stairs, try the doors to a building that faces the street on the other side, all locked. I climb a wall, 20 foot drop on the other side. I crawl through a fence, follow the path, it leads to a wall. There's one window that's lit, I yell hello, bonjour. Nada. I try calling the rental car emergency number and the line goes dead at two attempts, don't want to use up the 30% of battery I have left. 

After 20 minutes, I decide to call the police because I really don't want to spend the night on damp pebbles in my only coat, a rain shell, temperature predicted to be 32F. And in a charming and most inimitable fashion, the police man tells me that I'm in a pickle and he's not sure what to do, but will call me back, sounding rather too casual and amused for my liking. I again circle the perimeter, it's dark now, find a 6 inch wide opening, but it's onto a construction site that is a hole one storey below my level. There's a 9 inch ledge on one side of it attached to a building wall, leading to a wire fence that looks potentially bendable.

Seeming like my only option but pretty scared of the ledge above the hole one storey down, I decide to leave my belongings on the roof as their weight would destabilize me, and they won't fit through the gap unless I took each thing out and moved it through the gap one at a time. I push my body really hard through the opening, happy to have cut out sugar yet still getting pre-bruises on my ribs and hips, then climb up through stone and wet sand to the dangerous ledge, gingerly balancing on it with my stomach touching the wall with hands raised above, moving slowly one foot then the other like you see in movies when the person who was going to commit suicide decides not to. No looking down. After what felt like an eternity, I get to the potentially bendable fence. Nope. But there's no way I'm turning around and doing that scary ledge again. Brute force becomes my friend and I squeeze through an even smaller space than the first, carefully balancing my weight so I don't fall backwards into the pit. A family of four happen to be walking down the sidewalk on the "free" side and stop, fascinated, to watch, interestingly not offering to help nor congratulating me when I finally push through, ripped jeans and jacket. But I'm out and call the police to let them know.
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My small circle of hell

​I've never been so grateful to be sitting in a warm apartment with a bed, the ordeal having to accept that I might have to spend the night there still on repeat in my head. This morning I went back to drop off the keys and retrieve my stuff and when I told the person working there the story, they didn't seem at all surprised or concerned and offered no alternatives should it happen again. There's something about that response that helps me to reset.

It all made me wonder when the last time was that I'd felt any physical peril. Many many moons ago. Sorry to miss you, friends.