Category Archives: Provence

Man and Dog

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Fontaine de Vaucluse. France.

We walk down the path after looking at the deep pool at the base of a towering limestone cliff. It’s the source of the Sorgue River which now rushes clear and green beside us. The plane trees branching across the path are in fresh leaf.

Music rises abruptly above the sound of rushing water and voices of the other visitors. It’s the mechanical sound of a street organ. We turn the corner and there is a colourful, decorated box standing next to a tall vigorous man wearing scarves and a matching bright waistcoat. He takes a breath and out rings his voice. His song is loud and clear and lively.

Then I see his strong, lean dog. His short black coat is a bit ruffled and uneven as if he hasn’t finished losing his winter fur. The dog stands diagonally to his master looking up the path towards us. There is something about his stance that suggests embarrassment. I could imagine a thought bubble above him.

‘Oh,no! He’s doing this singing thing again’.

Springs: Fontaine de Vaucluse and Fontcaudette

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Here in Provence, the landscape is shaped by the limestone hills. The limestone is quarried to provide stone for the houses and walls and the hills also act as a giant reservoir. Rain is absorbed by the limestone and partially dissolves it to create underground pools and channels where the water flows downhill to emerge as springs.
La Fontaine de Vaucluse, pictured above, is the largest in Europe. Its water comes to the surface in a huge cavern after travelling for kilometres through the limestone hills. It lies in a deep blue green pool under a towering limestone cliff and seeps through the rocks at its lip to form the Sorgue River. The river races down the hill, increasing in size as more springs feed into it, to the village of Fontaine de Vaucluse and on to irrigate orchards before flowing through Isles- sur- Sorgues.

The water is clean and clear and rushes and swirls over gravel, rocks and brilliant green water weed. Huge old plane trees shade the stream and the path beside it where people walk up to view the cavernous source.image

Restaurant Philip is on a terrace beside the water. I love to sit right at its edge and look through the water to the gravel bottom and watch the water surge into this section from about five or six channels. Some ducks play in the current and upend themselves looking for food near the opposite bank. I can see every detail of their paddling feet. Long, thin, leafy plane tree branches overhang. All you can hear is rushing water.imageimage

On the other hand, the spring at Fontcaudette, pictured above, is tiny and trickles from a dark hole under a rock wall. It has been formalized a bit by some stone walling creating a small pond for the hameau, probably about five or six house originally. The water flows in a little channel through the garden of Les Romarins and down in to the vegetable garden below our hedge. There are a lot of black polythene garden irrigation pipes involved.

The difference between the two springs is just a matter of scale.

Breakfast

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The tiles are still warm underfoot as I open the French doors and shutters to the terrace.  Cool morning air flows inside. The table under the grapevine is in morning shade and angled to look across the hedge to the hills of the Luberon.

Nick is back with the bread and the coffee is made. It seems a bit silly but I’ve brought my stovetop espresso pot half way around the world so that we can have strong,smokey intense coffee in the morning. Plungers and filters just don’t quite get there!

As we sit, peacefully gazing out to the hills, two small spiders, one black and the one brown, provide the entertainment as they climb and drop, climb and drop from the pergola above.

They perform this to a strange soundtrack coming from the pool filled by the ‘font’ of Fontcaudette, which lies to the back corner of the house. At first, we thought it was the sound of squawking birds, a bit like an Australian wattle bird, but it was far too harsh for a European bird. We then discovered that there is a group of quite large frogs inhabiting the pond and it is their croaking which accompanies all our meals. Actually, the croak is pretty much like the sound of a wet foot squelching in a wet Croc!

So, we sit, and gather ourselves for the day. What will we do or not do?image

Weathering Houses

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There must be strict planning controls over new buildings in the rural area north of Coustellet. The new houses are built of the same limestone and in the same style as the established farm houses. In the hameau of Fontcaudette some of the seventeenth century old houses are so clustered that one roofline is merged with another, the terracotta tiles flowing over the entirety.

Further down the road are some new houses which sit up bright and crisp in fresh white limestone. You can see the limestone exposed in road cuttings through the Luberon to Lourmarin and you can see its natural tendency to split into building stones.

I don’t know how long it takes for the stone to weather down to the older dark grey buff colour, but I enjoy seeing the varying degrees of weathering and softening with age.image

Olive Family Tree

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Many of the olive trees around Fontcaudette grow in a circular trio.  They are slender young trees growing from the rootstock of their ancient parent. Sometimes the decaying stump is left in the centre and sometimes it has been removed,leaving bare earth in the middle of the cluster.

I’m sorry not to have seen the dark,twisted trunks of the mature trees.

Waiting for the thunderstorm

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I’m waiting for the thunderstorm which is rolling around in the hills behind us. It seems a long time since I’ve listened to the heavy thudding and rumbling that precedes a summer storm. Melbourne doesn’t produce as many of those as it used to, but here in Provence they’re a regular part of summer and a relief from the days of heat. The big decision is whether to risk lighting the charcoal BBQ in the face of being washed out. I think we’ll do it!

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