Daily Archives: May 18, 2012

Market Week in Provence, Part 2

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May 8, 2012.  Today we had breakfast at the villa, since Anne and I finally found the coordinates for an open grocery store last night.  Coffee, tea, toast, fig jam (from yesterday’s market), and my infamous garbage omlettes, mixed with fresh cheeses (also from the market yesterday), onions, fresh red peppers and mushrooms.

By 10:00 a.m. we climbed into the enormous van we rented, and headed north for Gordes, a lovely hill town where the very well-to-do have their summer houses.  Beautiful stone residences climb the hillside, somewhat like a very upscale Mesa Verde.  VERY upscale.  And the village at the top is pristine, with the requisite museum and church, as well as several boulangeries, cafes, and shops.  Not much in the way of tourist junk, thank goodness.

We were routed to a parking lot a few blocks away from the town, because it was VE Day, a national holiday, and there was to be a ceremony in the large square at the top of the hill.  In addition, we stumbled on Gordes’ weekly market, much smaller than the one in L’Isle Sur La Sorgue, and again, definitely the higher end of market fare.

At noon a ceremony was performed in the square, with the French version of our color guard standing tall.  All the bustle of the market stopped, in memory of all who lost their lives in WWII.  After about 15 minutes, everything resumed as before, but I felt honored to be on the sidelines of this solemn moment.

Exquisite lunch in Gordes

Our group ate a delicious lunch on the outside patio of L’Estaminet, took a last look around the market booths and the permanent shops.  I bought a lovely turquoise pashmina from one vendor, a large linen tablecloth and runner from another, and the requisite lavender soap, a must in Provence, where the lavender fields are not yet in flower, but definitely rounding out their greenery already.

By mid-afternoon, we were ready to pile back into the van and head toward Robion and our villa.  We created a delicious and widely-varied dinner out of the things we had bought during the past two days . . . cheeses and sausages from the markets, salad greens and roasted chicken left over from the day before, and wine from the Cave de Luberon.  All in all, a beautiful day!

Market Week in Provence: Part 1

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May 7, 2012. When I created the schedule of activities for most of our week in Provence, I didn’t deliberately choose to visit my favorite towns — Cassis, Gordes, Roussilon, St. Remy, Aix-en-Provence — each on the day of the local market, but four days out of five, that’s what happened.  I must admit that Sunday’s outing (see the previous post) was a deliberate market choice, and our timing was better than in the past.  Earlier in the day, the colorful booths explode out of the pathways around the Sorgue river, full of everything from tableclothes to shawls to baskets to cheeses, olives, roasted chickens, antique threads and tapestries, furniture, and schlock souvenirs (though thankfully there isn’t much of that).

Monday’s journey was to the Cote d’Azur, the French Riviera, specifically the beautiful little town of Cassis.  The U-shaped harbor is lined with cafes and what else . . . shops.  And at the water’s U-shaped edges are rows and rows of sailboats and motorized touring boats, which carry their passengers in and out of the Riviera’s calanques, fjords, the watery fingers of this part of the coast.

Since I have a strong tendency toward motion sickness, and have braved the waters the first time I traveled to this part of the area, I choose to send my traveling ducklings down these beautiful passageways without me.  The turquoise sparkling surface of the water reflected a magnificent sky today, and in my mind, the weather was perfect.

While my travelers cruised the calanques, I scouted out a restaurant where I could sit down and have my favorite boat-waiting meal . . . steak tartare!  Glass of red wine, basket of delicious French bread (there is NO bread like French bread from France, no matter HOW much I love Italy!), and a plate of fresh raw beef, parmesan cheese shavings, arugula in the center.  An on-shore meal to die for . . .

When the cruise boat returned to the dock, everyone was hungry, so of course we scouted restaurants and menus again until we found a place that offered something for everyone in our group.  I was happy with a glass of ice water and lemon, but the women had their fill of delicious soups, salads, and sandwiches after their time on the water.

Getting out of Cassis is always a challenge, and even with a GPS, the first few turns are very tricky  Who knows where we might end up?

After returning the women to our villa to enjoy the late afternoon sun (and a glass of wine, of course!), Anne and I went to the neighboring town, Coustellet, to find a Super U grocery store, to stock our barren refrigerator and cupboards.  Cheese, fruit, bread, coffee, salad greens, roasted chicken, fig jam, a bottle of Port, among our goodies, and accompanied by the wine we purchased at the Caveau de Luberon, a wine-tasting bar and wine store, we were set for at least half the week.

Back at our villa, we arranged our food purchases from the Sunday market and those from today’s grocery outing onto platters and carried everything out to the table in our courtyard, set to relax until bedtime.