It is Saturday, April 5th and it’s a summer day. Lots of sun, mid-70s today and upper 70s tomorrow. Keaka is over at a friend’s house, where a group of boys had a sleep over last night. Sophia has a friend over today (a sleep over last night) and they’re getting ready to sit by the swimming pool (which is not yet open for the season, though we wish it had been taken care of by now). Marz and I are supervisors and limo service at ready. It’s pretty hard to do anything when you have two teenagers on the go and needing a ride at any moment. Doing nothing isn’t the worst thing that can happen, but we tend to like to be on the move.
We were on the move the last two days, touring Luberon. There are the Luberon Mountains not far north of Aix-en Provence and just over the mountain range is a lush valley that is generally described as the Luberon. The area was generally off the radar until Peter Mayle wrote the book “A Year In Provence” in 1990. The nearest Luberon town is only 45 minutes from our house, while the far end of the area is about 90 minutes from the house. Again, we’re located in a great spot for touring.
The Luberon is not in need of welfare. It looks like the wealthy have found the area and staked a claim. There are many wineries and lots of villages. We toured on a couple of cloudy days, so our photos may lack the brightness we’d like and there’s no way our camera captures the beauty and drama. But, you get a general idea.
We started by driving to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, which is just over one hour away. The name means Island in the Sorgue River. It’s an old industrial city that seems to be an afterthought for Luberon tourists, though Marlene and I thought it to be one of the nicest places we’ve been. The Sorgue River starts five miles from town, simply coming out of the ground. It gets to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue and splits, creating an island, which the city is. The river looks more like a canal, very shallow, very clean and very fast moving. Everything seems to be by the water, which really adds a great charm. There are about a dozen water wheels, remaining from the days of powering manufacturing plants. Fishing has been a strong industry in the past, but now it’s a town of antique shops. Apparently, many U.S. antique dealers come to this town and buy a container or two worth of antiques to take back to their shops in the U.S. I told Marlene that her limit was one container. Actually, I told her she couldn’t buy anything.
Looking at the photos, we happened to visit Isle-sur-la-Sorgue on market day, which is quite a scene. We usually end up purchasing too much cheese. As always, there’s lots of old, old and interesting architecture, seen in a photo of a building on the town square. You get a look at the river and Marlene takes a seat riverside in front of one of the water wheels. And. there’s a photo of the entrance to the town hospital. After Isle-sure-la-Sorgue we drove through some great countryside and some amazing villages and on to Gordes.
Gordes is on a hill, as the photos show. And, there are some amazing views. Gordes was a ghost town in the 1960s, but it’s managed to pick things up a bit. Some folks have built swimming pools next to their homes on the side of the hill.
After World War II the Luberon was an area of poverty. Not any longer.
Marlene continues to read books about France, primarily the culture. She keeps repeating that we should have read the books before we came. France has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. There’s big news now, as Orange, the large cable company, has seen a string of employee suicides. I guess the 35-hour work week and weeks and weeks of vacation don’t answer all the questions. It is different here, as we continue to see men urinating at road side with some regularity. I guess it’s the culture, but I admit there are not a lot of places to seek relief. You see very few gas (carbunate) stations. We comment often as to how far we have driven without seeing a gas station. You can often go 30 minutes without seeing a station. Not quite the two-to-four gas stations on a corner that we see so often in the United States. Certainly, we have contradictions in the United States, but there’s no way we have the stark contradictions that they have here in France. I’ve often mentioned the crazy and very rude drivers here in the south of France. They pass wildly, push you off to the side of the road, scream at you, often drive 80-90 mph, and so on. But, for some reason when a traffic light is changing from green to red the French stop at all costs, as if a wall is dropping down in front of them. It’s the funniest thing. Like why are you so worried about following the law or rules of the road so dramatically at a traffic light when you are absolutely off the charts in every other phase of driving a vehicle?
It’s a constant learning experience living here in France. And, that’s part of what this was to be all about.
The Wilsons
