Arrival In Mérindol

We spent one night in Paris and two nights on the road and finally arrived at our destination : the little town of Mérindol in Provence. We had rented a gîte rural over the internet - this was 1993, remember - and all we had was a tiny thumbnail photo of the house. It was the first property, house or apartment, that we rented in France and we weren't exactly sure what to expect.

As you drive into Mérindol, you can see the remains of the old hill town up above.

1993 was the year that Peter Mayle's book, A Year in Provence, was released as a PBS television movie. We had seen it the month or two before our departure, and that's significant for two reasons. First, the images of the provençal towns just to the north of where we were staying were fresh in our minds. And second, the hordes of Peter Mayle inspired tourists had not yet descended on the Lubéron.

Mérindol overlooks the Durance River on the southern flank of the Lubéron Mountain. The place was mostly destroyed in the middle of the 16th century in an attempt to exterminate members of the Vaudois religious sect. There is a plaque commemorating the massacre at the top of the hill on which the village was built. Some people survived the attack by retreating into the surrounding hill country. The modern village of Mérindol is built at the base of the hill.

Our house was located outside the village, across the highway that runs parallel to the Durance. It was a modern house, probably built in the 70's, with three bedrooms, a spacious living room, and a terrazzo terrace that wrapped around two sides. Despite the fact that the highway was a few yards away and we could hear trucks, it was a perfectly comfortable house and we were pleased to be there.

Our temporary home in Mérindol.

I remember our first night pretty well. We got all squared away with the owner and had gone to the store for some provisions. The evening was warm and we set up our dinner out on the patio. Ken moved the television around to face outside and we watched a movie while we ate. I think it might have been "Coup de Torchon" (1981) because I remember that Philippe Noiret and Eddie Mitchell were in it.

After dinner, while we were relaxing at the table, we realized that we could reach up from our chairs into the cherry tree that over-hung the patio and pick perfectly ripe cherries and eat them. I'm sure we opened a second bottle of wine to celebrate our discovery. The rest is fuzzy. Still, jet lag was beginning to subside and we started to plan what we would do over the next two weeks as "residents" of Provence.

La Garrigue

Much of the land in Provence is what I would call chaparral. Similar to southern California, the arid hills are covered with low dry-land shrubs. You could call it scrub land; the French call it garrigue.

La garrigue above Mérindol and the Luberon mountain behind.

Mérindol, in the valley of the Durance River and at the foot of the Luberon mountain, is surrounded by la garrigue. There are countless dirt roads and paths that lead from the town up into the hills behind and to the Luberon mountain itself.

An incredible looking house up in hills above the town of Mérindol.

We took a walk or two up there during this trip. We couldn't go far since we weren't really prepared to do any serious hiking, but we got plenty of exercise climbing up and down nonetheless. It really did remind me of California, with one exception. A whole lot of the wild shrubs growing on those hills are rosemary and thyme. What a fragrant place!

A view of the Durance Valley below the Luberon from up in the garrigue, with plenty of genêt (scotch broom) in bloom.

Back To The Road: Provence

Back in June I started scanning the slides from Ken's and my 1993 trip to Provence. When we had house guests this past September, I put the slides away, but I hadn't finished. So, I figured that a good way to battle the grey, wet gloom of late fall was with my pictures of sunny Provence!

You can see the first installment of this trip here. After that, just use the archive list in the sidebar to navigate to the other entries if you missed them. You can also use the category list by clicking on "france regions" and look for the entries there. So, here we go again...

The small village of Mérindol seen from higher up on the mountain.

We rented a house in the Luberon village of Mérindol. It's on the southern flank of the mountain and was very quiet and nice. Not a tourist destination at all. It was a good place to be based while driving around southern France.

A little advertisement for the local wine.

There is, of course, a big wine industry in Provence. One of the local appellations is Côtes du Luberon. Since it was the local wine, I think we drank quite a bit of it during our stay.

One of our meals out on the terrace.
Looks like the makings for a salade niçoise.

Our rental house had a wonderful outdoor terrace facing south where we ate many of the meals we had when we weren't out and about. That's one of the things we liked about renting a house: we had a fully equipped kitchen and we went shopping in the markets and prepared many of our own meals. For us this was much more fun, not to mention more economical, than eating every meal in a restaurant.

Bollène

One more night before we were to check in to our vacation rental and we decided to find a hotel in Bollène, pretty much across the Rhône river from Pont-St-Esprit where the Ardèche flows in. We know absolutely nothing about the place, but it looked big enough to have a hotel and a place to eat.

The old center of Bollène.

As it turns out, Bollène has over 14,000 residents, les Bollénois, and was a nice place to stop. The old town sits up on a hill above the Lez, another tributary of the Rhône on the eastern side. There is a nice park up there with great views of the valley and of the Dentelles de Montmirail, a distinctive chain of mountains to the east. Dentelle means lace in French, and the limestone peaks are cut into fine points that must have reminded somebody of lace...

The view from Bollène, with what I think are the Dentelles de Montmirail in the background.

We walked around the park that evening and took some photos. I have no memory of dinner, but I remember having breakfast in the hotel the next morning as we were heading further south to our destination, Mérindol.

Bonnieux, Again

A few more images of Bonnieux for your viewing pleasure. Since my slides are out of order, these showed up after I had already posted some other images of this town.

Bonnieux seen from below.

From our house in Mérindol, there were two ways to get over the hill to the valley where these little hill towns were perched. We could west and around the mountain near Cavaillon, or we could drive east and cut through the mountain on a winding road that went through a pass.

There's always a view to be had in a hill town.

The winding pass road was much more scenic and we frequently used it. It spit us out right at the foot of Bonnieux, so we got to see it a lot.

This dog was napping in the shade, on cool stone, to escape the warm day.

This group of photos was taken when we decided that, instead of just passing through Bonnieux in the car, we should actually get out and walk around town a bit. We climbed up to the church and its grounds at the top of the hill and back down.

The hub of activity in Bonnieux was this café. Watch the traffic!

When we were in Bonnieux, there wasn't that much of commercial interest. One café/hotel, a handful of small artist shops, and not much more. I don't know how much it's changed since 1993, but I'd wager it has.

Maybe Ménerbes

This image is among several that I figured out were shot in the village of Ménerbes, so it's likely that's where it was taken, too. The hilltop towns in the Luberon area are picturesque, one after the other, to the point where they start looking alike. At least in my memories of them.

Ménerbes, I believe, in Provence. Digitized color slide, September 2001.

After Englishman Peter Mayle's novel, A Year in Provence, became a best seller in 1989 and a television series in 1993, international tourism in the region picked up and many of the hilltop towns got a facelift, buildings were restored or renovated, and hotels and holiday homes opened in and around the old villages. Ken and I spent a couple of weeks in the Luberon (in a town called Mérindol) in 1993 ourselves. The photos I'm posting right now come from our second stay in the area (in Cavaillon) back in 2001.