Rose Cantine

What I love most in Provence are the abbeys and monasteries spread across the Luberon and the Alpes de Haut-Provence. Many were built in the 12th and 13th centuries when religious orders settled down in Provence to lead a monastic life. Cistercian abbeys are, for me, the most atmospheric spaces in the world.

The Abbey of Sénanque

The Abbey at Sénanque - with its blooming lavender fields - is located outside Gordes, one of the most tourist-infested towns. It has been spared the tourist invasion because it’s not easy to reach, and you can only enter the abbey by joining a one-hour guided tour in French. Visiting hours are somewhat irregular, and visitors are required to maintain silence. Nevertheless, it is a must-see if you are in the area. Click here to read more about the abbey and see its Romanesque interior.

The ribbed vaulted ceilings seem to draw in light and serenity. The sparseness of the architecture and interior decor (no statues of saints or painted murals), what we call today “minimalism”, derives from the belief of the Cistercian monks and Saint Bernard (the founder) in particular, that one cannot pray and meditate if there is distraction. Simplicity, silence, prayer and hard work (o maintain an independent community that feeds itself) are the necessary elements of monastic life. It’s not surprising that the monasteries were established in remote areas which had enough water to support a community of monks, fertile soil and wood (for heating).

Every space in the abbey seems filled with peace especially the medieval garden where the monks grew medicinal herbs. The minimalist details that one finds in the cloister is filled with symbolism. The light that the ribbed vaulted ceilings seem to reflect represents God. In the main chapel, the floor right beneath the domed cupola is square, representing the four seasons and the four directions (North, South, East and West) — these together represent the Earth. As you look up (towards Heaven) you see the octagonal base of the cupola. The Octagon - the number 8 - represents the five senses of man as well as the five appendages (head, hands and legs) plus the Trinity (God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit). Finally, at the top is the cupola itself with light (symbol of God and Heaven) streaming into the chapel.

One of the most important places in the abbey we visited during the tour is the meeting room where the monks can speak and discuss differences. Remember that these people have to live together harmoniously so they had to find ways to work out their differences. It’s here that the head of the abbey meets with the monks to resolve conflict. The election of the head of the abbey by the monks is one of the most critical events of monastic life - they have to choose someone who is wise and compassionate.

Monastery of Ganagobie

Even more remote is the monastery of Ganagobie, which is located not in the Luberon but in the region of Alpes de Haut-Provence, which lies next to the Luberon. The monastery is laid out at the top of a plateau on a rocky hill that overlooks the Durance valley. According to the Provence website:

The monastery was founded in the 10th century by the Archbishop of Sisteron, who donated it in 965 to the Cluny abbey. The monks built the current monastery in the 12th century and between 12 and 15 monks worked on the land and in the forest until the 14th century. Later abandoned and then restored, the church today boasts a finely worked doorway and superb 12th-century mosaics on the inside. The land of the Priory was given to the Sainte-Madeleine community of Marseille at the end of last century to re-establish the Benedictine monastic order. The eastern part of the plateau and the living areas are reserved for the monks and closed to the public, but the section to the west is open to outsiders throughout the year from 15 h to 17 h, except Mondays.

I went to hear Gregorian chants at Ganagobie on the day they commemorated Mary Magdalene. It’s impossible to describe how mysterious and magical it was to listen to the chanting that filled this simple, dignified space and to observe how the light at the end of the day fell upon the walls that seemed to capture and hold it there.

You can stay for two to eight days at the Ganagobie monastery on an individual retreat. Click here for more information.

Amsterdam, like much of Europe, has been suffering from the hottest summer in recorded history. Everyday it has been 30C or so here. Hardly anyone has a fan, let alone airco.

So it’s a welcome change to have thunderstorms. Except of course, just now, the cracks of thunder are shaking the entire house. As we say in the Philippines, the Apostles are bowling upstairs!

Song of the day is Friday, I’m in Love. This is the perfect song for a lazy, breezy Friday afternoon in July and it’s from one of my favorite bands, The Cure.

Click here and sing along!

Friday I’m in Love

I don’t care if Monday’s blue
Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too
Thursday I don’t care about you
It’s Friday, I’m in love

Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn’t even start
It’s Friday I’m in love

Saturday, wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday, never hesitate…

I don’t care if Mondays black
Tuesday, Wednesday - heart attack
Thursday, never looking back
It’s Friday, I’m in love

Monday, you can hold your head
Tuesday, Wednesday stay in bed
Or Thursday - watch the walls instead
It’s Friday, I’m in love

Saturday, wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday, never hesitate…

Dressed up to the eyes
It’s a wonderful surprise
To see your shoes and your spirits rise
Throwing out your frown
And just smiling at the sound
And as sleek as a shriek
Spinning round and round
Always take a big bite
It’s such a gorgeous sight
To see you eat in the middle of the night
You can never get enough
Enough of this stuff
It’s Friday, I’m in love

I don’t care if Monday’s blue
Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too
Thursday I don’t care about you
It’s Friday, I’m in love

Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn’t even start
It’s Friday I’m in love

Wondering whether your favorite Provençal village has succumbed to “Quaint Village Plague”? Here are a few signs:

Brocante (flea markets) and expensive antique shops: when rich foreigners move into their bucolic Provence farmhouses, the first thing they do is to dress up their house in the “authentic” style. This is the signal for the locals to sell all of their junk at the local brocante. Nicer junk gets sold at antique shops at atmospheric prices that match the recently purchased residences.

Art galleries with safe, pretty art: decorative art that does not disturb the visitors’ absence of thought, cute little paintings that resemble - preferably one of the well-known artists such as Matisse, Cocteau, Braque, Cezanne and Monet - to emphasize the owner’s “taste”.

An unnaturally large number of restaurants and hotels: if you take a village with 200 residents (excluding the imports) and discover that there are 45 restaurants and 30 hotels, whom do you suppose they are trying to serve?

Fat Americans in little shorts and white running shoes: enough said.

Shops selling chicly packaged produits artisanal (honey, jams, mustards, tapenades, salt, olive oil): the real stuff (sold to the locals) comes in glass jars with a plain label bearing the farmer’s (and his wife’s) names. The stuff they sell to tourists looks like they came from the Comme des Garçons shop in Paris. The price difference is astronomical even though the difference in quality is not significant.

Violin concertos and Bach cantatas: summer in the Provence is a feast (or a pestilence) of classical music concerts targeted at foreign visitors and Parisians who have second homes in the area. Pierre Cardin recently renovated the Marquis de Sade’s ruined castle in Lacoste to stage a very expensive opera series every summer, which, not coincidentally is priced way out of the reach of the locals.

Fancy American schools taking over a village: nothing wrong with an American institution of higher education restoring a hamlet and turning it into a temporary sojourn for wealthy girls to prepare them for a life of art collecting and auction-going. But think about the amenities in the area — will you get able to eat local food for a decent price?

And finally, SUVs in the town square’s parking lot: undaunted by the narrow streets in most of these villages that date back to Roman times, the SUV owners - many of them from places that really need the SUV (i.e. Paris and London) - get their thrills by watching just how closely they can escape scratching the sides of their precious vehicles. Always fun to see unless you are about to be crushed between one of these monsters and a 12th century wall.

Thanks (or no thanks) to Peter Mayle’s best-selling novel, “A Year in Provence”, the towns that he mentions in the book - Gordes, Menèrbes and Bonnieux - attract a large number of tourists, many of whom arrive in tour buses that barely fit through the streets of these villages.

The crush got so bad that in an interview with a travel magazine, Mayle admits that he and his wife had to leave the Luberon and move to the US to escape the tourists and journalists who were hounding him in Menèrbes.

There’s nothing ugly about these villages, in fact, they’re lovely except you can’t really see them in their full glory because the tacky souvenir shops have gotten in the way. There’s nothing truly special about them either. I call it the “St. Paul de Vence” effect after the town that used to be a beautiful medieval village not far from Nice, but is now nothing more than a collection of souvenir shops that happen to be located amidst medieval buildings. The pushing, shoving crowds really diminish whatever allure these places once had, especially in 35 degree weather.

Gordes is the most scenic of them because it clings to a rocky hill and the views from the village (and onto the village from a side road) are among the best in the Luberon. It also has a larger selection of expensive hotels and chambres d’hotes than most other villages, but then again, they’re not necessarily that special in terms of decor or ambiance. Of all the villages I visited, I hated Gordes the most because it was so horribly crowded. Bonnieux is a much better place to have lunch or a drink.

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.