Rose Cantine

Apt is a town of 11,000 people in the Luberon and is only 4 kilometers away from Saignon, so it is the place to do grocery shopping if you plan to stay in Saignon. Apt is famous for its Saturday market and candied fruit (fruits confits), which you can get at La Bonbonnière.

Among the main sights in Apt is the Church of Sainte-Anne, whose crypt you can see in the photo. According to the website of Apt:

The lower crypt is part of the original 1st-century Roman building, used as a place of worship as early as the Carolingian era, and consists of a corridor leading to a vault where, as local legend has it, Saint Anne’s veil was found. The upper crypt dates back to the 11th century and is made up of a small nave (around 8 metres or 26 feet) and an apse. On the walls are seven alcoves containing Christian sarcophagi. The altar is made up of a pre-Roman engraved table placed on top of a Roman funeral stele with inscriptions on three sides. The early Christian cathedral was probably destroyed during the invasions and rebuilt in the 11th century. The cathedral underwent a series of radical transformations in the 14th and 18th centuries, particularly in the central nave.

Apt is the largest town in this area so everyone descends into it on market day and parking is difficult to find.

One of the delights of staying in Provence is the food: freshly made tapenades from good olives, anchoïade (an anchovy and garlic dip for crudités or toast), olive oil, delicious salads and tapas, local cheeses such as Banon cheese, Cavaillon melons, cherries, white aubergines, deep-fried courgette flowers, very sweet tomatoes, more than five varieties of basil (for different types of dishes), fruit confits (candied fruit which is a speciality in Apt), etc. At one of my light lunches in Saignon (see photo), I had an “assiette” of green and black olive tapenades, rillettes de thon, anchoïade, marinated beets, melon, hummous and aioli.

At a local farm called Le Castelas outside Sivergues, the owners serve a lunch that consists of products from their farm: different types of goat cheese, cured ham that tastes like the Spanish pata negra, a salad with a garlicky vinaigrette and excellent bread. Read this long review of Le Castelas, posted on Chocolate and Zucchini.

I will post more food notes and recipes later.

After Aix, it’s off to Saignon, a tiny hilltop village outside Apt. Saignon and Apt are in a region called the Luberon, popularized in Peter Mayle’s novel “A Year in Provence”. From May until September, the Luberon gets a lot of tourists but they congregate mostly in Bonnieux, Gordes and Ménerbes, the towns mentioned in Mayle’s book (more on this in a later post).

The drive from Aix-en-Provence to Saignon is spectacular because it takes you through the hilly parc naturel du Luberon (a protected natural reserve where you can go on hikes).

Saignon is such a tiny village and so secluded that it has no Internet access and one (intermittently open and tiny grocery). It clings to the rocky side of a hill and if you are standing at the top of the ruined fortress, you see “Danger” signs posted right where you might be tempted to take a leap into the void.

Saignon is a very quiet place where you can get away from the world. And the bells of the 12th century church of Notre Dame de Pitié are about the only thing you hear during the day and in the early evenings. Consider staying in Saignon for a week and use it as your base for exploring the Luberon.

Hotel and restaurant recommendations in Saignon

Consider staying at Chambre de séjour avec vue - Demeure d’art et d’hôtes”, a B&B (which has one apartment as well) right next to the church. Run by Kamila Regent (who comes from Poland) and Pierre Jaccaud, this is not your typical B&B. It’s an eclectic, funky hideway with art gallery and sculpture installations in the garden. The owners renovated two houses next to one another and filled them with works of art. They host an artist-in-residence as well. This is one of the best places I have every stayed in and the only one you should seriously consider if you are in the Luberon.

There are two other places to stay right outside Saignon: Domaine de la Piboulière and Chateau Saint Quentin — more traditional than Chambre avec Vue but still lovely.

Because Saignon is a tiny village, there are two restaurants - the Auberge du Presbytere (a hotel plus restaurant) and La Cave Gourmande- and a small cafe that serves salads and simple meals. Because it was very hot, the midday meal should be light but delicious. I did not try the Auberge but had a memorable dinner of veau á la basquaise at the Cave Gourmand, followed by a tarte aux poires et au chocolat (see the recipe on Chocolate and Zucchini).

This is the first of travel notes in the Provence this summer. I have gathered together my favorite places — museums, churches, markets, villages — and made random notes of recipes, restaurants, hotels and so on.

Aix-en-Provence is a small city about 45 minutes drive from Marseille’s airport (which is well outside Marseille so there’s little traffic there). Because Aix is a student town, it’s very lively, especially at night, when everyone seems to begin dinner at midnight, and then continue on from there. The vibe is very much like the Born and Raval areas of Barcelona.

My favorites in Aix are sacred and profane: the Saint-Saveur Cathedral and the market (Saturday mornings). The cathedral was started in the 5th century and finished in the 17th. It boasts of a holy relic - a wooden fragment of the actual Cross on which Jesus was crucified. Before you get too excited about this, bear in mind that there are dozens of churches all over Europe that claim to have a fragment of The Cross and that if you glued all of these fragments together, you’d probably be able to build an entire bridge across the Strait of Gibraltar.

Anyway, Saint-Saveur’s ancient walls, the garden, baptistery and quiet side chapels are all wonderful places for meditation and reflection. As I was there on my birthday, July 1, I lit a candle and said a little prayer.

The market in Aix is astonishing not only because of the variety of fruit and vegetables, but because the fruit is very delicious. Cherries and Cavaillon melons are in season so I bought several bags and ate them over the next few days.

I posted photos of the market on Flickr so you can see what humans are really supposed to be eating (as opposed to fast food).

For more information on Aix-en-Provence, go to the city’s website. Bear in mind that if you are traveling in the summer, nearly every destination - whether it’s a city of a tiny village - has some kind of festival, which may make it difficult to find a hotel room or a table at a good restaurant. Aix and Avignon, Arles and Nîmes are known for art, theater and photography festivals (the latter two also have bullfights in the spring).

I am back from Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon and have posted my entire photoset on Flickr. What I loved about this trip was the absolute tranquility in villages such as Blauzac and Saignon where I spent the better part of the holiday. No Internet access and no TV!

Over the next few days, I will be posting travel notes about the different places I visited. The most impressive places to see in Languedoc are the Roman aqueduct at Pont du Gard and the Roman arena in Nîmes, which is quite large — certainly larger than the one in Arles (a town I did not like at all) — and they hold bullfights there, too (blood sports have not completely disappeared into the mists of history).

What exactly did Materazzi say to Zizou at the World Cup final? A TV interview with Zidane last week that drew a record audience provided few clues about the incident. Zidane claims that Materazzi insulted his mother and sister (from Le Monde):

Il a dit des mots très durs, des mots plus durs que des gestes, des mots qui me touchaient au plus profond de moi et qui concernaient ma maman et ma soeur, avait déclaré Zinédine Zidane pour justifier le geste qui lui a valu un carton rouge à 10 minutes de la fin de France-Italie. “Le coupable, c’est celui qui provoque”, avait accusé l’ancien meneur de jeu des Bleus.

This is hard to believe since football players are always insulting each other’s female relatives. A cousin of Zidane says that Materazzi called Zizou a terrorist or a “harki” (Algerians who collaborated with the French). I seriously doubt that Materazzi’s knowledge of French history is that good. Finally, one of the Italian newspapers reports that Materazzi only said, “come play with us at Inter Milan”. Bizarre.

FIFA will determine what disiciplinary action to take after the meeting (with Materazzi and Zidane) on 20 July 2006.

Update: FIFA suspended Zizou and Materazzi for several games, which is irrelevant to Zizou because he has retired. It also imposed fines on the two players.

There’s nothing like watching the finals of the World Cup - France against Italy - in a bar in Villeneuve-les-Avignon. The Italians dominated first half of the match. Zinedine Zidane scored on a penalty early in the first half but Italy scored several minutes later. The match slowly turned in favor of the French with Zidane getting a couple of excellent scoring chances. Then overtime (2 x 10 minutes). Surprisingly, Zidane was sent off with a red card after headbutting Marco Matterazzi.

Zidane is a veteran of so many international matches, plus he is the captain of the French team so it’s really unbelievable to see him lose his temper.

So after 1-1, the match enters the penalty phase and David Trezeguet misses. It wasn’t a terrible miss (unlike the Argentine misses in the quarterfinal against Germany) but still Trezeguet missed at the most critical moment.

Fabien Barthez couldn’t stop any of the Italian penalties. Am I the only one who finds Fabien Barthez’s goalkeeping style a little too nerve-wracking?

So the Clarence Seedorf* Memorial Award goes to David Trezeguet and the two Argentine players - Roberto Ayala and Esteban Cambiasso - who missed their penalties in the quarterfinals.

It was a bit sad to see the disappointment in the faces of the French fans especially since we have been watching the matches at various bars here in the Provence for over a week and in every match, they have won. And we’ve seen them drive on their motos and in their cars waving the tricolore as they zip by.

*Clarence Seedorf is a Dutch football player who missed too many decisive penalties in critical matches.