Yesterday, while I dropped the kids off at their respective schools, Ed picked up a rental car. We decided to take a day of touring without the kids, and picked as our destination the Luberon, the mountains and valleys just to the north of Aix-en-Provence. (See our earlier blogs on travelling there with the kids and with Ed’s parents!)
Yesterday we drove a different route and went first to the town of Rousillon. The main draw of Rousillon is that it is a city built just next to an area rich with ochre, dark red and/or warm yellow. As we pulled into the town the buildings really were different shades of reds and oranges and yellows. Very picturesque. Just up the hill from where we parked there was a Sentier des Ochres, an area where they explained how ochre was formed. (The area was, millions of years ago, covered by the sea and when it retracted all sorts of rocks and minerals were left behind.) Ochre apparently binds with quartz, creating a very colorful sand. There was a trail heading off from the information tableau so off we went.
The ochre forms incredible peaks and needles, reaching majestically up to the sky and with such variation in color. We walked by different cliffs, formations, etc. and had a jolly good time. We agreed that the kids would love the experience of running through the red, but also read that ochre is a highly staining material and we would probably have to dress Noah all in reds and oranges as a preventative measure!
After our mini-hike we took a mosey through the town with an eye out for a place to have lunch. We were almost the only people in the town, citizens included, and it was a little disorienting to be in a clearly tourist destination but without all the tourists! After exploring the belfry, the church and various heights through the town we settled on a hillside café where we were one of two parties in the restaurant. The food was fine, the company and the views were magnificent. After several glasses of wine and some coffee we headed off.
Our next destination was the Village des Bories. The bories are buildings built in a formation very similar to a beehive. It is a prehistoric formation, although the village that we went to see was originally built in the 1400s. In order to get to the bories one drives past Gordes, still as stunning in a drive-by as before with a full visit. The road in to the village is narrow and built with high layered-granite walls on both sides. Arriving in to the site, we were informed that there was only one other couple there viewing the village, so we essentially had it all to ourselves. There was a brief video explaining how the village was probably built, and a description of how it had been abandoned and then reclaimed in the 1960s and “renovated” so that the artists could live there again.
The buildings are really mysterious. They were used for various purposes, from residences to barns, pigsties and sheep-pens, ovens and wine caves. There were a number of fruit and nut trees on the land around, so lots of evidence of the self-sufficiency one must need to live in a separate and dramatic environment like this.
The buildings were constructed using only small granite slabs, chiseled out from the surrounding area. The slabs were layered one upon the next, with a very slight outward angle to facilitate rain drainage. As the rocks got closer to the roof level they started to move in just slightly closer together, giving the bee-hive effect I described above. Some of the building were enormous, at least two stories high. In the 1960s the new inhabitants were either less-skilled or less hardy as they chose to use mortar to fill in the chinks in between the rocks.
It was very humbling to be in a place so clearly made by hand, with all the evidence that everything one needed was just around. Ed was also struck by how far we are nowadays from being able to live such a basic lifestyle.
Looking at our watches we realized that our leisurely day without kids had to be cut short. We had planned one more visit, which we will have to take another time. But it was already 3:00 and school lets out for Noah at 4:20. So, off to our car we went. And back to our day-to-day life.
But it struck me, more than once during the day, how very lucky we are to have this year. This year together in France, this year together as a family, this year together as a couple. We really do have more time, and a slower pace of life, with less pressing issues to work our way through. I am so thankful for the freedom my being a stay-at-home mom allows our family. And for the generosity the university allows it professors to take a year to work on their research anywhere they see fit. And for the willingness of my family to embark on this adventure and all of the twists and turns it brings. There are so many amazing and interesting things here in the “Old World” and we have only just begun to peek at them. Now if only our French language skills would let us understand them even more!
