Exploring Provence

On this trip to see parts of southern France and Spain, I have made a new best friend. Her name is Jane, and she speaks in a charming British accent. Also, with a few exceptions, she knows everything there is to know about every road in Europe. And I can´t imagine making this journey without her.

Jane is the voice of our GPS. It actually says on the screen that that is her name. Looking back, it´s silly that we even debated whether we wanted to shell out the 8 Euros per day (a little over $10) for her as we rented our car to make this trip. In 2004, my mother and my stepfather Chuck and I made a circuit of northern Spain by car, aided only with printed-out Michelin maps to our destinations. Due to the generally confusing Spanish road system, that trip was punctuated by shrieks, wrong turns, exclamations of "Was that the exit?" and other general driving disasters. There was never a doubt in my mind that Jane would be worth the expense, and so far she has more than paid for herself.

After we landed in Barcelona, Jane safely navigated us to our first destination, the city of Arles in Provence. (On the way, we saw that the France-Spain border has its own version of "South of the Border" - no lie. It´s an entirely artificial "Catalan Village" whose chief benefit is its free restrooms. I expected to start seeing signs bearing instructions from Pedro.)

We relied primarily on Rick Steve´s guidebook to plan this trip, and for the most part his advice is good. But a couple of his restaurant recommendations fell short - it´s disheartening to walk in and see a bunch of Americans with copies of the guidebook sitting on their tables and be handed an English-language menu. I was willing to take the risk of accidentally ordering tripe or other internal organs in exchange for more authentically French cuisine. Fortunately, we saved the best for last and had a truly spectacular meal on our last night in Arles before heading to Spain (three courses, each more elegant than the last, finished with a chocolate dessert that was truly a work of art).

Rick Steve´s says Arles is a good home base for exploring Provence, and geographically that´s true. But its own sights are a little lacking - paying 6 Euros 50 to go inside the Roman Arena, only to discover there was literally nothing inside to see, felt like a rip-off. And it has absolutely no nightlife - walking back from dinner one night, the streets were so deserted we started to get nervous about encountering a mugger, even though the city otherwise appeared safe. One thing we were glad to see, though, was the city´s twice-weekly market. We wandered through on Saturday morning exploring the foods - cheeses, sausages, unusual herbs and fruits - and flowers, clothing and merchandise ranging from genuinely interesting handcrafts to cheap junk.

A German friend told me the one can´t-miss sight in Provence is Les Baux, and he was right. It´s a Medieval chateau on top of a high limestone plateau, rising above a picturesque town with good souvenir shopping. The views of surrounding mountains and valleys are spectacular, and there are interesting history lessons about the various groups who marauded through France over the ages - and you can see how the catapults, battering rams and other battle weapons worked.

Near Les Baux are some caves where a local vineyard built casks to age their wine, and we went inside and got a wine lesson from one of the employees along with free tastings. We also spent some time in Avignon, which has a lot of interesting history (we saw the "Palais du Papes" where popes lived for several centuries). We suspect it also has a much better restaurant scene than Arles, but sadly we only experienced one very nice lunch there. And, with Jane´s help we saw the Pont du Gard, the largest Roman aqueduct in these parts, and wondered how they could possibly have built it more than 2,000 years ago.

After our three days in Provence, we made our way to Spain - with one memorable short detour - but my time in this Internet cafe is running out so I will have to update what we´ve done here in a future entry, hopefully soon.