from Pierrerue: skinny legs and wild manes

I had always wanted to see the Camargue, but it was never on the way to anything. It spills out into the Mediterranean and sort of straddles the bottom corner of Provence and the top corner of Languedoc.

It’s an odd place, not what you would necessarily regard as a good tourist destination: marshland. And lots of it. But I had heard stories of the once wild Camargue, with its birds and ponies and sort of savage looking types who fight bulls for fun.

I looked at the map and decided it was close enough. If I sped along the coast I could get there in about two hours. And I wasn’t at all discouraged by the one or two who said – wild horses and birds? You’re dreaming. More likely you’ll just see a lot of mud.

People can be such pessimists.

I had two ports of call on my list and a lot of rambling in between. I intended to briefly stop (a late lunch maybe?) at Aigues-Mortes and then head on to Les Saintes Maries de la Mer. I know you never heard of either, so just fyi, Aigues Mortes is a medieval gem, France’s first port of access to the sea and Les Saintes Maries de la Mer – I can’t quite figure that one out, even after having been there. More on this later.

Aigues Mortes did not permit me the intended half an hour pop in, pop out type of thing. Initially, the distractions were trivial. I spent, for instance, twenty minutes alone deciding which biscuits to buy here:



Then, having walked past numerous shops and cafes, I decided to do something a little more meaningful, like maybe scale the ramparts and see what was beyond. But it’s a long wall, and although it afforded wonderful views of the inside and the outside…



looking inside the wall



looking at the wall



looking at the salt fields outside the wall



looking at a group of school children on the wall


[digression: note the girl above; must be around 9 years old; white dress with a light blue design, blue kerchief, white and blue sandals. I have not looked so coordinated and well put together for decades! They learn young.]


…I noticed that it was 4:30 by the time I finished wall-promenading. Did I say this? - It really is a long wall.

And I had not even paused for lunch yet. Up to now, I had been eating my daily lunch on my neighbor’s patio at Pierrerue, but in an effort to head out earlier than 3, I had cut that pleasant little hour out of the day. So here I am, in the middle of Aigues Mortes, hungry, in between times where any place worth its ingredients would be preparing food, with only a toe thus far set into the region of the Camargue.

This required contemplation and deliberation and so I left the busy shopping area and walked up and down the quite little side streets, hoping that great thoughts would come.

Side streets are often sprinkled with jewels, and this one was no exception. I happened across a tiny little place with two tables outside and a chalkboard with neat little descriptions of several salads and tidbits from Provence, to be sampled with an accompaniment of wine from the family winery, the Chateau de l’Isolette.

I read the chalkboard and am smitten to the core. What could be more perfect than an assiette a l’accent d’Oc, Oc, being the old Roman language spoken here centuries ago (so now you know how the region got its name: Langue –d’Oc) and the assiette, or plate, holding such magnificence as warm Camargue chevre with a salad and veggies and tapinades made with the flavors of Provence, accompanied by a glass of rose wine?

I walk in and inquire about the possibility of eating. Jean-Francois is there, welcoming, but telling me that the cook has stepped out for a while.

How long will he be gone?
It’s a she.
Oops. How long will she be gone?
Five minutes, maybe ten.

I hesitate. The clock's ticking and the Camargue is still but a dream. But, I am so set on that assiette a l’accent d’Oc. And so I sit down to wait.

Five minutes in the south of France is a range. Madame is definitely straying into the outer limits of that range, when, after half an hour, she is not back yet. But I tell myself that I just have to rearrange my images of the day somewhat. Because, in truth, I am having a wonderful time, there at the little table of the Chateau de l’Isolette. Jean-Francois gives me samples of Provence paté and talks about the individual small producers behind them. Ouside, the street is quiet. A neighbor comes out to gossip with another, a man walks by with a fresh baguette. It is a half hour of bliss.






When Carole, the woman behind the food comes back, she whips up such a fine assiette, that I know that lunch and dinner have become one for me and they are here at the little Isolette.





Of course, being a young and with it couple, they would notice my camera being out more than being in. And since the French world is divided into two camps: those with Internet access and those who pretend they haven’t heard of the Internet, and Jean-Francois and Carole belong to the first camp, before the ink dried on the scribbled Ocean address (they asked for it, they got it), there they were, logging on and bringing up photos of Carcassone and ice creams and children on beaches. Ocean has come to Isolette.



taking a look at Ocean


And I have to give credit to this most charming place with a terrific little repas: asking for food at around five in France is like asking for milk in your coffee after noon. You just cannot expect anyone will take you seriously.

So thank you, Jean-Francois and Carole, you are tops with me and anyone who goes to Aigues Mortes and neglects to walk the wall and have wine and food at your little corner of heaven will have missed out big time.

However, it was now getting to be awfully close to 6.

How far is les Saintes Maries de la Mer anyway?
Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes.
Oh, that’s nothing.
You Americans, you are used to such great distances! We traveled to California to taste your wines and everything was so far apart! Hundreds of kilometers. We measure distances in small doses.
And what did you think of the wineries in California?
They are so big (does this theme sound familiar?)! They are nice, but very different from here.
And they don’t have great rosé wines...
It’s true! Americans only ask for red or white...

Finally, at 6:30, I drive into Les Saintes Maries de la Mer.

And I drive right out. The place is a zoo! Perhaps it has worth, but I could not see it, hidden that it was behind the crowds and shops and Luna Park type attractions.

But I cannot say that the drive there was a waste. In the marshes surrounding these two towns, I got my first glimpse of these:




Excited as I was when I spotted the first flock of pink birds, I must say that it was small pennies to all that I saw as the evening progressed.

The Camargue is full of wildlife. And birds. (And insects, particularly at dusk.) Flamingos have made this area their stopping place and they are everywhere. If you feel you want to see them en masse, you can do as I did, drive down to the nature preserve. But you needn’t bother, for you cannot help but run into those toothpick legs and pink-tinged wings. Where there is water, there they shall be, poking around in the mud for their grub.





What I found was missing from my total Camargue experience were the horses. I see them everywhere, white, beautiful horses, grazing on pretty much every field you pass.




But how do you get close to them?

It is significantly past seven. I should be heading toward the highway. It’s a long trip home to Pierrerue. Instead, I pull over, randomly, on a whim, to one of the many many Camargue horse farms. It’ll have to be dinner or a horse and I choose a horse.

Can I ride a horse out into the Camargue this evening? I ask this of a guy who could not fit the image better: dark from the sun, high leather strapped boots, a few missing teeth. He studies me for a while.
Have you ever ridden before?
Well, yes, it’s been a while though.

He turns to his partner, brother, fellow cowboy, who is rinsing a tin cup in a small sink.
Ride with her.

I am given Oublie – the forgotten one.
Good horse, my riding companion says. I learn that he is a man of few words.





Oublie goes only two ways: too fast or too slow. He lags behind my cowboy, forcing him to wave his hand and command me to allez! Make him go already!
And so I nudge Oublie to trot forward. Oublie loves to trot. Or to lag.

Occasionally, the cowboy points with his hand to birds or animals that I may not have noticed: otters, turtles and the flocks of birds.
Ca va? He asks, after a while, to make sure Oublie and I are still on board, or, rather, that I am on board Oublie.
Ca va.




We ride in silence. I try to take photos, but believe me, working a camera and commanding the reigns on a trotting horse is only slightly less ridiculous than working a camera in a kayak going over rapids. Once, Oublie took advantage of my distraction and chose to go off on a different path. The cowboy waited, I came around.




As we paused to cross the highway to head back to the farm, he turned to me and asked:
Almagne? (Germany?)
No, American.
American?

A wealth of communication, in just those four words.

I take Oublie to the water tub and ask my cowboy for a photo.




I had wanted to tip him with a five Euro note, but somewhere, when I was fiddling with my camera and the reigns, I let go of the note. It’s there, in the Camargue marshes, with the horses and the birds.

from Pierrerue: longing for the smell of ewe

If I am going to set destinations that are hours away from Pierrerue, I should not leave Pierrerue after 3:30.

But the sun doesn’t set until ten and if I can pick up a highway, I can get to the northern-most edges of Languedoc in a flash.

Truly, the new superhighways that have recently linked cities in this part of the country are remarkable.



near Millau (my destination point for the day)

Once close to where I want to be, I defer to the country lanes, often so narrow, that second gear seems too fast.

But the reason for going further afield at such late hours is, well, stubbornness. It's not that I care deeply about getting to Millau. The books like it, but I happen to think it’s not worth a detour, let alone a destination. Big-ish city, nice enough in a ho hum, seen one seen ‘em all sort of way. But if you follow a narrow road some twenty kilometers to the side of it, you enter this little town:



painted house, at the entrance to it


I not only like Roquefort cheese, I once taught a class at l'Etoile on French cheeses and the story of Roquefort filled a good one-fourth of class time, so I owe it a big thank you.

It’s a great story of a long dedication to quality in food and drink. You would think that name protection (Roquefort, Champagne, they all have it) is a modern concept, but no! Roquefort first came to be protected, both in name and cheese, back in 1411. [So when you ask -- why are the French so fussy about their foods, the answer I think has to be that it's in their make-up – they can’t help it, they’ve been fussing for centuries.]

Of course, by the time I actually got to Roquefort, there was no way I could do a big inspection of the caves. I made do with a little inspection and a lot of cheese sampling. Predictably, the caves are cool, humid and apparently perfect for the penicillum roqueforti to do its blue magic. The smell of ewe’s milk ripening into cheese is everywhere. You have to wonder if, living here, your nose shuts down in protest.



houses with caves


And as I am on the subject of protest, outside the village, I saw signs of another type of protest – on boards posted along the road, and even harvested into a design on fields, the words “pas d’OGM dans ma commune” (standing for Organisme Génétiquement Modifié). We have GMO-free shelves of milk in some stores. Here, they have OGM-free farming regions. A quick look at this website shows how widespread the movement is in France.


I toyed with the idea of heading back to Pierrerue when I noticed that even food stores were closing by the time I reached the city of Millau. Food stores are the last to shut down. The typical bakery bakes up a fresh hot batch of baguettes in time for the evening meal and stays open until 7:30 so that every last French person can pick up one or two on the way home (after a pause at a café, of course; they will have stopped working long before that).

But there I was, so close to the land of gorges – some of the most beautiful in Europe, I hear. Was I to turn my back on them? Of course not. It’s eerie, in a beautiful sort of way, to drive along in the shadows of the receding sun, down through ravines, past cliffs above and gushing waters below.



looking up




looking down


I have a newfound healthy respect for those rushing streams and kayaks that attempt to navigate them. At this hour though, I pass only an occasional fisherman. The narrow roads are (thankfully) empty. I do have a goal. I read somewhere that one of the most interesting villages in France (there we go again, the most) is around here. Cantobre, built right into the edge of one of the cliffs.





It’s a small place and I can’t think why anyone would have built it up there to begin with, but I’m fascinated by it, especially now that it stands in the shadows of dusk. It calls for a pause. I had forgotten to eat lunch, forgotten to make plans for dinner, but no matter, there is a café up there in the rocky cliff and I am able to revive myself with this:





It's not quite midnight when I finally drive up the hill to Pierrerue, but awfully close to it. Dinner? Well, there are the tomatoes, and this, picked up in the land of the Roquefort.

from Pierrerue: windows

Carcassonne. Someone once said: the problem with it is that it’s just a little too perfect. An old town, crumbling, decayed, then, in a flurry of activity, rebuilt some two hundred years ago so that it now shines.

But you know, phrases like “it’s a little too perfect” are just not going to scare me away. I’m fearless. Besides, my artist neighbor approved of the trip and I am in awe of her. She dresses in silks and linen slacks daily, even though on some days the only people she sees are her husband and me. Somehow, I don’t think she does it for either of us. She has the style gene.

And, moreover, Carcassonne is a big town, with a reputation for great chocolates. I need gifts for some of the people of Pierrerue: for Marie-Rose for helping me navigate the Pierrerue street(s), for Celine for opening her house to me last Sunday, for my artist neighbor for letting me eat my lunch daily on her wonderful, secluded patio so that I can look out at the hills and let the sun warm my bare shoulders.

Alright, reasons enough to go. But this time I am no fool. I don’t just plunge into errands and sight seeing. I start the afternoon right:





As I make my way up the hill to the old walled part of the city, the wind really picks up. It is intensely difficult to navigate across a bridge with your skirt flying in every direction especially of an upward type and with your packets of chocolate flapping away like out of control boat flags against a wobbly mast (that would be me). But I am undaunted. I am made of hearty peasant stock.



from the bridge, looking up at it


The town itself is significantly empty. The wind has little to do with that. You don’t come to these parts of France if you have issues with winds. It is le football that creates the feeling of a French town abandoned by its own kind.

So that the numerous restaurants on the square look like this:





Though if you looked hard enough, inside the bars, you will find this:





It is very very late by the time I pulled in to the Canal-side restaurant, Pourquois Pas. My landlady is there, serving a tableful of boat people (the vacation barges sometimes stop here for dinner). This time it is a bunch of American dentists with their wives, in France for a brief and very luxurious jaunt along the Canal du Midi.

I talk to them because they have that Midwestern “I am friendly” air that invites conversation. They speak of their trip thus far and they keep repeating how shockingly friendly the French are – in Paris and even more so, here in the south of France.

They told me Parisians were snooty. Parisians helped my wife constantly with her suitcase or when she was having trouble navigating the stairs! And here, we just cannot grasp how it can be that we talk about them as haughty. Everywhere we go, everyone is so nice to us.

This particular dentist had not traveled much up to now (money is not the issue here), but this year he is seizing the travel bull by its horns.

My wife and I noticed that we are getting those little creaks in our bones. We have a window. The children are out, we still hobble around well enough. We have to see the world for ourselves. I’m finally taking time off to do that.

Carcassonne missed its window. Hundreds of years ago, when they were building the Canal du Midi, Riquet (the architect of it) proposed that it should run through town. The citizens would not put up the money for it. And so it was routed a few kilometers north of it. As a result, other towns prospered and Carcassonne fell by the way side. More than a hundred years later, the city changed its mind and so the Canal was rerouted right through town. Too late. Water commerce was on the decline. Carcassonne blew it.

So I did not say to the dentist better late than never.



Canal by the restaurant, around 9 in the evening




baked cheese on a blue plate

from Pierrerue: easy going

It’s irresistible, that Mediterranean is. Two-thirty, I still have some free Internet time left but what the hell, I can work off line. And so I pack a folder of papers and speed to the coast.

An hour, that’s all it takes to put me on the nicest of the great beaches. And it’s a pleasant hour of passing the known to me by now villages of the great St Chinian wines. “Village en peril,” reads one big sign. Villages that depend on booming wine sales. Villages that are no longer seeing booming wine sales as the global marketplace has flooded stores with cheap alternatives to the French stuff.

Why does Puisserguier (just east of St Chinian) have an extra big sign before it saying that it is dying? -- I ask people from around here.
You know, the militant defenders of French agriculture, they come from here, from the south. But that village is no different from the rest. We all depend on the wine markets. And we, here in the Languedoc region, we don’t know how to market ourselves abroad. We don’t know how to show off our wines.

The struggle to succeed. The desire to define success differently.

The daughter of Celine tells me: at the University where I work (she does research on autism), my colleagues, they give 40% of themselves. When I worked in San Francisco, I gave 120%. It was exciting!
Her mother protests: people work hard here. You see just one corner of the world over there in Montpellier. Here, they take time off, but when they are working, they work hard.

The young measure excitement differently.

The daughter of Marie Rose comes to see me this morning. She is a nurse at the hospital. Her fiancée is a computer guy. They are going to California for a while. She wants to know what it’s like to have a baby in America. As so many others here, she intends to get pregnant before getting married. Are there nurseries for small ones, like here?

Here, school starts at the age of two. It’s free, but even before that, subsidies make nannies and nurseries completely affordable. It is both good and not so good that it does not pay for a mother to work when her children are young.

Celine chose work anyway.
I had my mother and mother-in-law help me and the nurseries here are good. I never slowed down.

But her fast paced job at the Wine Cooperative still allows her long periods of time at home, for all meals, for long holidays, for five week vacations.

I talk to my neighbor, the artist. Why do young people want to travel to America? To make money?
No, I don’t think so. It’s for the adventure. You earn more there, but everything costs more. My cousin lives in California, I visited her. I could not believe her housing costs, the food costs! But then, everything is so big there! I never saw such large refrigerators before. And the bottles inside –huge! You know what gave me the biggest surprise though? That people ate inside their cars. I saw it, they took out foods and beverages, just like that!

Marie Rose’s daughter plans on keeping her house, here in Pierrerue. No one lets go of their village house. Nothing is ever for sale here they say.

I drive to the beach, with my stack of papers and several bottles of water. I pass these villages and the vineyards around them, I listen to French radio: two French songs, one American and an occasional Italian, that’s the ratio. Commercials for Citroen, for Splash Park, updates on the World Cup. Tuesday is the big day – France plays. The men will watch, the women still roll their eyes at the whole thing.

Sixty-one minutes later, my road curves and runs parallel to the water. I pull over and walk onto the sand. I spread my towel, take off all but what’s necessary to remain respectable and lie down.



watching the disappearing ice cream cone




watching the waves



...and what they leave behind


I stop by my neighbor the artist’s house this morning.
You are home? I thought you were going to Spain for the day.
No, a change of plans. My husband wants to watch the game tonight.
Oh, too bad. Maybe you’ll go on the week-end?
The week-end? She smiles. For us, everyday is like the week-end.

It’s evening. The breeze on the beach becomes cooler now. Time to head back. Bread, sautéed veggies, cheese, wine. White peaches, sweet melon and a tart filled with pine nuts. A day like any other.



empty in the early evening

from Pierrerue: l’invitation

It’s midnight, Saturday. I’ve bunny hopped and discoed and cha chad at the Fete de Pierrerue and now it’s time to go home.

As I say good bye to the people at my table, Celine asks:
Will you come to the Sunday meal with my family?

I am flooded with good will and, soon after, panic. I had managed four hours of French conversation during the Fete, but let’s face it, it’s a lot easier to keep going when you have built in interruptions such as dancing and choking on a tomato.

And there are the obvious worries: what do I wear? If I overdress, I’ll look stupid. If I underdress, I’ll insult my hosts.

The gift, too. At home, there is no question: you bring wine. It is so much the norm that I think anyone who still neglects this custom must be doing it on purpose. But here, am I to bring wine to a family who has for generations made a business of it? Isn’t it like bringing chocolate chip cookies to a pastry chef? Here, I know you have perfected the art of baking Napoleons, but let me present you with some nice and chewy cookies from a recipe off of a Nestle’s chocolate chip package.

Marie-Rose offers to walk me to Celine’s house. Marie Rose knows that I cannot get the bread lady’s schedule straight nor swallow tomatoes properly and am, therefore, likely to lose my way even in this one street village. She is sweet to be concerned.

But indeed, I am thrilled to accept the invitation. It is both an honor and a pleasure for me. I will try hard. I will read up on the village life of a Catalan woman (see post below).

Sunday morning, I wash every last piece of clothing in case I decide to wear any of it. Then, off to the market. I pick up a good Muscat – the preferred aperitif here – and a bunch of roses. At 12:30, Marie Rose and I set off. I ask if she wants me to drive – Celine's house is at the edge of the village, a kilometer uphill, but she says no, it’s good for her cellulite to walk. It astonishes me that old-world Marie Rose worries about cellulite.



Celine and Pierre's home


Marie Rose does not stay – she has her own 92-year old mother back home to attend to. Inside the gate, Celine is waiting. Her daughter shows off their garden and we go inside. The table is set, le dejeuner with maman, papa, fille and fils (though fils will be late as his summer job down at the village café will keep him running until 3) and grandmere is about to begin.





I know, it was to be expected. The meal was wonderful, all four hours of it. Little pizzettes with the aperitif (I could have stopped right there, foodwise), salads, grilled meats and sausages (I had to try all four types), a potato cake (I had seconds), a tray of pastries (I ate the whole thing), melon with champagne (my cup runneth over), espresso.





Certainly, I walked away with a new and improved idea of what it’s like to live in this quiet corner of southern France. Myths got debunked, but my respect and love for this village remains firm. I am, however, completely set straight now on the following:

- not all French eat croissants everyday for breakfast. Those baguette slices from the previous night’s dinner? Perfect as toast and jam the next morning;

- five weeks per year are the French vacation minimum, but not all is taken in the summer. Take Pierre, Celine’s husband. He hunts wild birds in the winter, along with his pals. Three weeks needed for that alone;

- time may have stood still in the Languedoc (this region of southern France), but yoga has come to the villages, at least to the one next door. Celine partakes, along with a handful of other women. She shows us some poses, turns pink, giggles, trips and sits down. Forget the meditation part, she’s after the feeling supple and looking great bit;

- a small village is not one small gossip circuit. An example of how little is known about others: they tell me Marie Rose is the village traditionalist. She prays a lot and has conservative ideas. But they know nothing of my other neighbors, the artists, even though these guys have lived here for more than five years. Marie Rose, on the other hand, knows the artists, but isn’t quite sure what he does for a living. A policeman maybe? No one knows much of anything about my English landlady. Until this day, when I invited her in to look around, Marie Rose had never even been inside my little apartment (no love lost between the two women) and Celine and Pierre were stunned to know that my landlady was the owner of the well known restaurant, Pourquois Pas;

- it is true, however, that women hanging around village cafés in the afternoon raise eyebrows and that women on a Petanque court are a rarity. Celine’s older daughter summarized it thus: Petanque is boring. Why would I want to do that anyway?

- It is also true that if you order a café crème (coffee with milk) in the afternoon, you will be pegged as someone with a weird digestive system. The French are absolutely convinced that mixing milk with coffee after the sun has passed its high point for the day will ruin you;

- A nap after a long lunch is a must. The grandmere, the fils and the papa all fell asleep before I left. That might lead you to believe that I overstayed my welcome, but no, I made every effort to leave when grandmere first let out a gentle little snore. But I could not do it. The women were engaged and engaging and only after a promise of future contact could I retreat to give them, too, a chance to exhale.

They tell me this part of the France is the last of the pays sauvage. I do not know how to translate it, but it does strike the right image: It is not wild, nor savage, or maybe it is both. It remains, most certainly unspoiled. Yes, they say that Johnny Depp bought a house near Montpellier and the entire province cannot stop talking about it. Over dinner, every day, in a leisurely way, until the last word has been said and the last sip of espresso finished.



along the road, back to the village

from Pierrerue: painters and parties

I went to Ceret in the late afternoon both because it is at the foothills of the Pyrenees and because it was once a place of escape for artists and intellectuals. They left traces of their work behind: Picasso, Chagall, Kisling, Cocteau among countless others. I wanted to see the place for myself to see what the draw was (besides freedom from oppressive and belligerent regimes).

Of course, I am curious about other stuff too. Ceret is just a few kilometers from Spain. When faced with a border, I want to cross it. What’s it like on the other side?

And so before proceeding to Ceret, I turned south, dug out my passport and recalled a few Spanish words I thought might be useful. Ola. Mui rico. They’re all greetings, or comments on food.

I must admit, crossing over to Spain was one of those bad decisions. I had sped south for two hours and was due back at Pierrerue before 8. My time was limited and should not have been given over to border towns packed with shoppers buying up tobacco and motorbikes and God knows what else.

The snaking line of traffic was discouraging and I was prepared to spend even more time at the border itself. Thankfully, the Spanish control person chose at this hour to take a nap and I was happy to see traffic whiz by his booth without him so much as opening an eye. I thought for a minute he may be dead, all sprawled out as he was and so I was relieved to see his stomach move up and down with some regularity.

Having snuck past that, I breathed a (premature) sigh of relief. Seconds later, however, I was pulled over by a very pleasant if official looking woman. I watched with envy as all others sailed through without attracting hers or anyone’s attention.

Where are you going and how long will you be there? She asked.
Ashamed of my reasons for being there (for the hell of it), I eeked out: twenty minutes.
Not staying overnight?
No…
And you are driving a rented car?
Is that it? Am I not allowed to bring in a rented car here? I should have checked. Still…
Yes, it’s rented. Listen, I can turn back… Interest in a peek at Spain was vanishing. I’ve been in Spain plenty. Why this detour? Foolish.
Just one more thing. How old are you??
Now that just gave me pause and so I asked –why do you want to know?
For the survey, of course. I am from the Tourist Bureau and we are conducting random surveys of visitors.
It seems prudent to disclose this information at the outset, but I am not here to make a fuss, so I tell her my age and drive on.

Reflecting that Spain is a pretty place even if this particular spot does not adequately display her splendors, I decide to at least find a café that would do me up a fine cappuccino. And I did find a restaurant off to the side somewhere, boasting fresh ingredients and Catalan food and so I ordered a Catalan Cream in addition to the coffee and proceeded to have a fine discussion on the merits of the Catalan Cream over the French Crème Brulee. The former, I’m told, has flavors of orange and honey and a richness that I am assured cannot be found in something as plain as a Crème Brulee, which, after all, is merely eggs, cream and sugar.

It was past five when I finally arrived in Ceret. That turned out to work in Ceret’s favor. The colors of houses, the dappled plane trees, the mellowness of a late afternoon light all made the town lovely to behold.










In the Museum of Modern Art, I saw a more somber story, of course. Artists escaping war and repression are inevitably going to work through their stress in their creations and indeed, Picasso’s gift to the museum was a painting depicting evil and Chagall’s magnificent painting on the theme of war could not be more moving in a very sad sort of way.

True, Picasso also left behind ceramics depicting bull fights, which were very a propos, this being a town that goes in for that sort of thing. And there was an occasional Dufy and we know Dufy can paint no evil, so that was a bit of a relief.

I also went to a bookstore and asked if they had any book at all that would help me out a little with the finer nuance of French grammar. I was tired of hearing myself speak incorrectly.

Ceret’s bookstores are a bit on the pretentious side. They have serious little volumes on art, philosophy and on the human condition in general. There was not a grammar book to be had, but I was assured that I would do well reading to myself the memoirs of a Catalan woman – something about having to leave home and suffering separation anxiety from the village of her youth. I was flattered that my French was pegged at such a level. Or maybe she wrote in a particularly accessible way. In any case, I have the book with me and will get to it as soon as the tempo of life here in the south of France slows down for me even more.






In the evening there was, of course, the annual Pierrerue Fete. I went down with great trepidation. I knew hardly anyone in town. Why had I thought this to be a good idea?

Madame Marie-Rose rescued me. Literally, she saved my life as I managed to, early on, choke on a tomato wedge and without her resounding slap on my back, delivered with the force of a woman who has seen death and would not like to repeat the experience just that evening, I would have been but ashes in the cemetery at the bottom of the Pierrerue hill.

The Fete itself was possibly the highpoint of highpoints. 160 people showed up from Pierrerue and its sister village just down the hill (Combejean). The village youth prepared and served the food, counting on a profit that would allow them to party to high heaven later in the season.



delivering

Of course, this being an intergenerational kind of place, on this night both young and old mixed, ate and danced together late into the night and I am told in July the old will again show up to the party of the young and, just as on this night, they will start with the slower dances, move right into a multiage bunny hop and wind the evening down with some hearty disco stuff.



my table



taking it in

Such an evening! I will long remember Celine* (my age) explaining across the table to Marie-Rose what life is like in America. Her daughter had done graduate work in San Francisco and so she knew the scoop. America, from a French person’s perspective: there is great concern that we do not use trains enough and that we lack bread stores in every village.

Celine works at the wine cooperative. Her father and grandfather were “wine growers” (vignerons). If you asked her if she ever thought about leaving Pierrerue she would laugh. Entre deux. Pierrerue is an entre deux village – it lies between the two: mountains and sea. It is, in the eyes of its residents, a perfect location, like no other on earth. They love this place. Me too, outsider that I am.

*where people have offered personal stories out of friendship rather of a service, I have disguised identifiers – the most obvious being names. I’ve changed most of them.

from Pierrerue: mirror mirror

I wanted to catch the 2:15 train to Montpellier. I worked hard to get stuff done, but in the end, even though I drove demonically to Beziers in the hopes of making it, I missed it by two minutes and had to settle for the 3:09. It is almost an hour ride from Beziers, which meant that it wasn’t until after 4 that I exited the train station of Montpellier La Roche. Late, considering I absolutely had to be on the 6:47 return in order to make my dinner reservation up in the little village just beyond Pierrerue.

Montpellier is a big city. And it is actually very pretty, all cleaned up and spiffy, with large boulevards, flashy modern blue and yellow tram cars moving along the main circuit, squares, parks, and I hear it has a fascinating old town.





I saw hardly any of it. Here’s why:

In my rural ramblings, I have been missing this one aspect of city life: the café. Village cafés are different. Oftentimes they are right in the midst of traffic, just so you can catch every single car and person that passes through. They are not pretty, they’re functional. A pastis or an espresso, a chat and you’re off.

Sure, they are good for people watching and especially of older men watching, as they are the most frequent habitués of the village café. This was taken yesterday, over a café noisette (forget about cappuccino at the village; the cappuccino to them demands whipped cream; most often, the café-bar has none and therefore will refuse your cappuccino request).



the men of St. Chinian




okay, the St. Chinian poodle could feel at home at any city or village in France


But there’s something about a grand outdoor café that a city provides, out there on the open boulevard or closed-to-traffic square, something that just cannot be replicated elsewhere – not on the corner of St Chinian, not on State Street in Madison. It’s certainly not better than the latter, it’s simply different and after two weeks of village life, I was hankering for an afternoon of that difference.

And sure enough, Montpellier has an abundance of outdoor cafés. Indeed, the focal point is a large square which, like in Krakow, Venice or any other large European city, has been handed over to the café crowds. And they are different than my wonderfully capped men of St Chinian. (Again, not at all better and hardly more interesting, just very different.) Compare and contrast.



St Chinian cafe




Montpellier cafe


But before sitting down for my coveted and adored cappuccino, I make the mistake of entering the Galleries Lafayette and trying on a beautiful blue and yellow scarf.

I look in the mirror and freeze.

Pierrerue does not have much of a mirror. There is something resembling one hanging in the bathroom, but the lightbulb there has long gone out and I haven’t bothered climbing up to replace it. And now, in the bright lights of the Galleries Lafayette I could witness the true state of my hair: under the influence of the southern sun, it had turned almost completely blonde.

That’s fine. I have no problem with being a blonde in the summer of 2006. The problem is that the roots, hidden there under layers of blondeness, are having a hard time catching up. Brown roots, a splash of gray at the temples and a mound of basic blondness. I can’t believe I have been out in public like this!

It is 5:30. I enter a haircut store conveniently positioned outside the doors of the Galleries Lafayette and tell the desk person: do something! Is there a product you can sell me? Anything!

She looks at me, spins around and runs off to get the manager. He comes to the front, looks at me, frowns, reaches for some product and proceeds to explain how I might use it and what I may hope to accomplish for an interim solution.

I lost him on step number 43. It could be that after going through this, I will wind up looking worse than I look right now.

I have a train to catch in one hour and fifteen minutes. Can you fix my cheveux in that time, please?




Jason's replacement in the background


Fifty five minutes, that’s all they needed. He painted and hummed so that my roots caught up to the rest of the south of France effect. She scrubbed, conditioned and conditioned some more. Want me to cut it too? Oh, go for it. Snip, snip, two minutes later she is done. My man Jason back home would be appalled.

Fact is, though, I can’t say I’d be looking much better after a Jason afternoon. And the price? One third that of Madison’s. I’m thinking: if I saved on hair by tending to it here and used the savings for airfare, could I make it to Montpellier, say, every two months and come out even?





No café this time. I ran in my flashy flowered sandals, without even pausing for an ice cream cone. But late at night, as I worked my way through the multicourse presentation of chef Frederic at my favorite village restaurant, I did think for the first time that I looked at least presentable. No little girl shoes, no denim skirt, perfectly styled hair with no dark roots. France is transforming me.

The night ended with cheeses and gratineed fruits.