Fountain 22, Lavedieu, 4 August

I followed my instincts from La Chaise-Dieu to Allier. I had the whole day to arrive at the barn of my new Anglo-Franco friends. I aimed roughly south west and came upon fresh shining black tarmac looping through dense deciduous forests. Blueberries, strawberries and raspberries were nearly leaping off their bushes. What else could I do but stop and pick handful after handful until I was stained blue and purple like an ancient Celt covered in woad. Then I found a safe place to park Louise and curled up in a mossy patch for an afternoon nap. It felt like a fairy tale, although I couldn't say which one, and nothing terrible happened to me apart from a couple ant bites.

Signs for Lavedieu claimed it was one of the most beautiful villages in France. It was lovely, but it was a preserved in aspic sort of place, like a museum exhibit lacking the edginess of reality. It also lacked drinking water and I was parched.







             Another eau non potable fountain.

My plastic water bottle was warm and crinkled, leaking free radicals into the stale water. The heat of the stones came through my clothes making it as uncomfortable as a radiator to sit on.

 

A lovely jewel of a church. 

11th Century volcanic stone and filled with frescoes, carvings,

free standing sculptures and Far East tourists.

 A peculiar lion-bodied 'green man' figure.

  

Having been raised a Catholic I often forget that the well known saints I see in churches

 aren't familiar faces to everyone who visits. 

This little group of tourists obviously looked upon my familiar symbols 

with surprise and amusement.

The twisted body of St. Sebastian, mounted on the pilaster 

supporting the arch, sent them into fits of barely stifled giggles which echoed around the church.

  Taking it in turns, they stood beside him, imitated his pose with encouragement and 

adjustments to get it just right and then took plenty of snap shots to take back home with them.

My best Christmas wishes, dear readers. Christmas Eve. Chalice Well, Glastonbury, Somerset

Christmas Eve.
Our family tradition is to completely forget the last minute supermarket rush for sprouts and whatever people cannot live without on Christmas day and take a long walk. Christmas and its trappings always threatens to overwhelm me with an existential crisis, but Christmas Eve in the wind and rain and snow and ice and whatever the day throws at us is transcendent. Even the singular year we were having a beach BBQ in shirtsleeves, dusting the sand off our burnt vege sausages and discussing whether we should throw off all our clothes and swim in the great grey wintery Atlantic. Under the barrage of commercialism and high expectation, this day feels real and elemental.

Glastonbury is a well known spot for all sorts- Christians, Arthurians, Druids, New Agers, Travellers, Neo-pagans, Wiccans, Low Impact Livestylers, Crystal Healers, Rock Festival Goers, Ley Line Enthusiasts (here the Michael and Mary line cross over at three different points), etc.

Archeological evidence has shown that the Chalice Well has been in constant use for over 
2000 years and it dispenses 25,000 gallons of water every day even in times of drought. 
According to Christian legend Chalice Well marks the site where Joseph of Aramithea
placed the chalice that had caught the drops of Jesus' blood and from thenceforth the waters turned red. It was also here that Joseph thrust his staff into the ground which took root to produce the Holy Thorn Tree (Crataegus Monogyna praecox) which blooms in the Chalice Well garden every Christmas.

                                              Chalice Well inside the Chalice Well Garden. 

    On the adjacent road there are two pipes, one for the Red Spring and one for the White Spring. Having two very separate water sources whose mineral content is so different in such close proximity is quite unusual.  The red water is due to its high iron content, while the white water contains calcite.
I filled my bottle with the white to drink after we climbed up the Tor in a gale force wind.

           Wishing you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas, my dear readers. 

Thank you for reading.

Joyeux Noël!

щасливого Різдва

圣诞快乐

Gelukkige Kerstmis

Frohe Weihnachten

Selamat Natal

Buon Natale

Wesołych Świąt

Срећан Божић

Счастливого Рождества

มีความสุขคริสต์มาส

Giáng hạnh phúc
        Gembira Krismas        

        

Fountain 21. Place d l'Abbaye, Le Chaise-Dieu. 4 August

  Dore-L'Eglise

 c. 15th-16th Century stone cross depicting baby Jesus swaddled and patient in anticipation

 of his ultimate crucifixion thirty-some years down the line.

 

I have never seen this iconography on any of the hundreds of French stone crosses that I have encountered in my travels. This obvious juxtaposition of innocence and vulnerability is so tender.
However we always remain vulnerable and ultimately perishable.
So what happens to our innocence?
Do we actually lose it as if it were a purse full of credit cards?
Or do we mislay it and put something else in its place. Like fear.



 I am always moved by paintings or music completed just before the creator expired. Such as Mozart's Requiem Mass or Chagall's final lithograph, completed the night before he died in 1985.
 It shows a painter at the easel with an angel descending with open arms. I suppose at aged 98 one
 can assume the end is getting closer with each breath, but the strength of this work does not give
the impression one might expect from its chronology.
Yet, perhaps knowing that, we are invited to read into the picture and develop its symbolism further. Could those be the soul's wings on the artist back?
Is the woman on the easel offering the painter flowers from beyond the canvas?
I have grown to love Chagall because he is not afraid to paint the poetic and lyrical nature of his spirituality.

 

                                              'Towards Another Light' by March Chagall

                                                       

                       
                                  The Fountain in the Place d' l Abbaye, Le Chaise Dieu
                                      Eau non potable which has been a very rare event.

Le Chaise-Dieu, God's Chair, is set on a high butte of 1082 m.  

It was very quiet. As if all the motorbikes and cars were floating in a dream.

 Even the five muddied young men in matching blue leathers roared and wheelied 

their KTMs in a muffled, head stuffed in cotton wool sort of way.

                                                      
                                                Grave marker from the floor of the Abbaye

I must confess, that for years I have owed much of my petrol station confidence to a television advert
 and Side Show Bob. 

After having put diesel in an petrol car and petrol in a diesel car, embarrassingly and expensively more than once, I now pause,
and recall an advert reminding the owner that their very clean and quiet car had a diesel engine.

The word "die" was written in unexpected places leading us to perceive a sinister threat.  However, as the car owner refuels the car we realise it is only to act as an aide memoire.
Then I remember Side Show Bob's trial on The Simpson's.

Blue-Haired Lawyer: What about that tattoo on your chest? Doesn't it say "DIE BART DIE"?

Sideshow Bob: No, that's German

[unveils tattoo]

Sideshow Bob: for 'THE BART THE'.

Woman on Parole Board: No one who speaks German could be an evil man.

Funny how one's brain works.

La Source, Bostfaucher

 Normally I am a shy person. I pretend, often quite convincingly, that I'm not.
However, in all my years of travel, I have never just popped in on someone who was simply a friend of a friend. Even when they say the usual "Oh you will love them. They will love you" stuff. Because chances are it won't be that way. They won't love me at all because so much of love is built on history and shared experience. It will be awkward and silent and whatever gift I might have brought with me will smack of the Goldilocks syndrome- too small, too big, too wrong.

This journey, in an attempt to grow and mature, eg to feel the fear and do it anyway, I did drop in on two different houses of friends of friends. The first experience was so wonderful I regretted all the times I had abstained. All those fascinating people my friends have photos of and send Christmas cards to have been missed opportunities to do what people do - make meaningful connections, expand their tribe, fill their address book or multiply their Facebook friends.

The second visit reminded me why I have avoided launching myself upon a stranger. He had been an internationally acclaimed trapeze artist, making him far too interesting, handsome, extraordinary and utterly preoccupied with wooing a very beautiful young woman he had obviously just met. A middle-aged motor biker with matted down hair just didn't cut it. He didn't recognise our unshared history.

 I won't dwell on our mistiming. Only be grateful I wasn't flying through the air waiting for him to catch me.


     La Source, Bostfaucher

 I was aiming to arrive at 4 pm for the afternoon break in the Daily Rhythm of meditation and silent mindfulness. Although I was rudely late, and cringing at the noise Louise cut into the quiet of the valley, Lizzy and David welcomed me with open arms and an overwhelmingly delicious rich chocolately fruity extravaganza of a cake which we ate in the garden with quaint little cake forks.

Like butterflies we landed briefly to enjoy the sweet nectar of meaningful conversation on ideas of philosophy and spirituality, gardening and cake recipes. Then I had a tour of the vegetable garden and the house which they have converted to fulfill a shared dream. They offer retreats for the weary, those in need of a rest or change of perspective. Our hour together was both delightful and rewarding, imagine a whole week.                                                   

 

 

                                                        www.retreathouseauvergne.com

Marsac en Livradois. 3 August

                                                 Marsac en Livradois, Puy de Dome

      7:30 pm and I really should stop for the night, having just passed a municipal campsite next to a river. In a cul-de-sac by the park a group of partying young men shout " Le Triumph!" and wave and hoot, urging me to join them. Obviously their vision was blurred by the beers, otherwise they wouldn't have invited someone old enough to be their mother. Nevertheless, I smile and call back "peut-être je reviens" and backtrack to the campsite.






Marsac is a strange town. It has the ambiance of an old hill-billy town in Arkansas and I feel unnerved, like I'm about stumble onto the set of "Deliverance".




I have just done a Google search and almost all it gives, as apparently there is virtually nothing to say about the place, is a bit of geographical detail.



I include a snippet as it reminds me of a funeral tribute given by someone who neither knew nor cared about the deceased. It reminds me of my father's funeral and the handful of hollow sentences the priest said after he double-checked his notes to ensure he said the correct name.

Surface :	48.46 km² (4 846 hectares)
Altitude minimum :	531 m
Altitude maximum :	1 041 m
Altitude moyenne :	786 m
Altitude de la mairie:	545
Coordonnées géographiques sexagésimales (WGS84): Latitude: 45° 28' 44'' Nord Longitude: 03° 43' 40'' Est Coordonnées géographiques décimales : Latitude: 45.48 degrés  (45.48° Nord) Longitude: 3.725 degrés (3.725° Est) Coordonnées en Lambert 93 du chef-lieu : X: 7 569 hectomètres Y: 64 869 hectomètres
	If one feels the need to note the lowest altitude, the highest altitude, the average altitude and the altitude of the Mayor's office, that in itself says volumes. However, there are quite a few photos of the town and its inhabitants and I'll add a few of my own. It has an individual and quirky style.  I admire that.

	A provincial Edward Scissorhands reference.
	Breakfast at the war memorial and now I know that a quarter of a watermelon in one sitting is too much.

Further provincial references to Christo and Olsen Zander.



A local cultural festival resulted in trees and fences being wrapped with old clothes: jumpers, socks, bobble hat etc.
 After breakfast, I took a stroll to walk off some of the watermelon. I bumped into the man from the campsite with the two slinky, hungry-eyed Alsatian dogs and a disabled wife who never left their camper van. He made a face and shook his head "pourquoi"?  I explained the little that I knew and added that the locals seemed very honoured to be making a contribution to the international the art scene.



















http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/projects/wrapped-trees#.UqzpMY1SK3c

www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/12/fabric-wrapped-trees/‎

Fountain 20. Fountain of the Choristers, Le-Puy-en-Valey. 3 August

 Ponots, the people who are from Le Puy, in my brief and narrow experience, are very friendly and proud of their city and its traditions. I learned about the 14th century Fountain of the Choristers, named after a little singing boy, from a beautiful girl with perfect lilting English from the Specialities de la Region shop on the corner. She used to work on the tourist train which wended through the city ferrying international tourists with their snapping cameras. (Apparently more photographs have been taken globally in the last year than in all the years since 1839 when Daguerre and William Fox Talbot introduced their respective photographic processes. However, I digress as this is not a fact I learned from her but from Hugh Laurie on Desert Island Disks.)

The girl rattled off her tour guide speil and frequently laughed, when to her surprise and perhaps relief, she found that she had forgotten entire segments and that her dates were rather rusty. The fountain has exceeding clear water, I must taste it, as it is supplied by a local volcano and is directly on the thirsty pilgrim's route to the Cathedral. This road is called Rue de Tables because lace makers would put their tables outside, which they still do today, and work, hoping to attract custom from the passing crowds.

 

The final flight of 60 steps up to the Cathedrale de Notre Dame du Puy

The decorative facade is made of white limestone and black volcanic breccia is similar

 to the Abbaye Saint-Chaffre in Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille

 

 

A tourist, as I doubt a Ponot would have the need to do something quite like this,

 followed me into a side chapel, and laid herself down on a huge marble slab marking the 

burial place of someone special. Then like a dog who circles inside its bed several

 times before it feels suitably comfortable, she rolled over, slid about, wrestled with

 her handbag until she found a natural position for an afternoon break.

                                                        

                                                              The shoes of the Virgin Mary

Fountain 19. Le Monastier sur-Gazeille 2nd August

  

In 1878, Robert Louise Stevenson began his two week trip through the Cevennes 

with Celestine, his donkey, from Le Monastier.

In 2013, I was two weeks into my seven week trip with my motorbike,
Louise, when I arrived in Le Monastier.

Robert and I have much in common it seems. 

And I quite admire many of his remarks

eg

" For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake."

and

"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world. "

and

the little sign that my son gave me a few Christmases ago which

 hangs next to the this and that of my house

"That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much."

Very optimistic advice from a man who suffered ill health all his life and died aged 44
while opening a bottle of wine in Samoa.

 

I doubt that Robert left with a fan fare. But I was lucky enough to arrive with one.

 As I strolled through the shadowy aisles of the 10th century abbaye, 

where even the dust hovered in a static denial of time passing,

 wild Gypsy/Balkan music blared and echoed and thrashed off the rough volcanic walls.

It was the 25th Festival of Brass Music.

Unfortunately, I had a thumping great migraine at the time.

To see and hear for yourself: visit this website link

   http://www.festivaldumonastier.fr/HAIDOUTI-ORKESTAR-FANFARAI.html

the wonderful rough hewn volcanic blocks that make a mosaic of the west front, 

squashed between buildings and awkward to photograph

Fountain 18. Source of the Loire 2 August

                                              This wide plain opened out before me.

In the distance I could see only the plain, because indeed it is a high plateau, where fresh cut fields exposed the shy pale blades of grass and the grey tarmac ribbon curled gently along the contours. A surprising wind clipped me sidelong from time to time, propelling me across the lanes like a drunkard. Flocks of Harleys overshot me and then pulled over to roll cigarettes, slip off studded jackets and shake golden tresses out of helmets like they do in the movies.
Following the tradition of the tortoise and the hare, I chugged on and got there first.







 Mont Gerbier de Jonc is one of the 450 extinct volcanoes on  the Massif Central, an enormous and remote area which covers 15% of France. The peak rises to an altitude of 1,551 m and from its base are three springs that are the source of the Loire, France's longest river which snakes along for 1,012km before it reaches the Bay of Biscay.

At the time it seemed like such a bother to get re-togged up into walking clothes, which of course, now I regret. Nevertheless, I did hover round the base and stuff myself silly on wild raspberries, strawberries and myrtilles.







Across the road, was the unlikely emergence of the source. I had driven several hours to arrive at the birth place of this great river that I have crossed so many times as it widens near Nantes. I have swum in her tributaries, slept beside her listening to frogs and hedgehogs, watched the night lights: stars, cafes, street lights and fireworks dance on her surface, so this felt an important deepening of our relationship.

The water flowed through an oak pipe into a trough that was built into the porch of an old stone farm building.
Now the building is a shop and visitor centre selling everything you could possibly make with mrytilles.  Little human traffic jams built up on either side of the door as family groups, cyclists, seasoned walkers with thick socks and badges, filled up their bottles, blocking the entrance to the shop.

between the fountains

 

( a wall in Arles)

 I've had a few more thoughts on radiation.

 Maybe it is all just fine the way it is.

The dinosaurs "naturally" became extinct due to environmental factors. I don't have the statistics but are there many people who are upset that the land isn't awash with Tryannosaurus Rex?

Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, man's self-induced destruction is as "natural" as a collision of comets. Who will be bemoaning our demise? Or perhaps we will eventually mutate into a radiation tolerant species.

This isn't to say that I'm condoning the present financially driven disregard for our exquisite planet. 
These are just thoughts on the topic.

This video is a worth a view.
http://memolition.com/2013/10/16/time-lapse-map-of-every-nuclear-explosion-ever-on-earth/ 

Fountain 17 . ? 31 July

                     I have no idea where Fountain 17 was. no photo. no notes, apart from: "31 July. 17"        scribbled in my notebook.

                                 I was heading north to the Auvergne and Le Puy-en-Valey.

 

  I vaguely have a recollection of something somewhere between 

the massive hands and grapes on the roundabout and the tomb of St Andeol.

                                             


There was a particular patch of about 30 miles that was so ugly that I forgot that I was in my beloved France. Tangles of motorways and flatland along the Rhone, a stench of chemicals, giant electric pylons marching off into the distance,  a nuclear power plant, barking dogs and sadness. A veritable desolate wasteland of dust and despicableness where for a short while I felt that I had lost my soul.


Not surprisingly, I just found this on the Guardian website:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jul/25/nuclear.industry.france

'It feels like a sci-fi film' - accidents tarnish nuclear dream

"I feel as if everything's constantly dirty," Eymard said, her hands deep in soapy lather scrubbing plates.
The view from the house over the fields is dominated by the nearby cooling towers of the Tricastin site, a nuclear power plant run by EDF, the company which is poised to buy British Energy and take control of most UK nuclear stations.
Next to the plant is a nuclear treatment centre run by a subsidiary of Areva, the nuclear group which hopes to design many of the new British reactors. Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône. ....French nuclear companies are hoping to play a central role in the government's plan to build a new generation of reactors. At home, however, the industry has been buffeted by a series of mishaps...."

Quite worryingly I live not that far from Hinkley Point where the British Government is quite happy to allow EDF and a group of Chinese investors to build another reactor. In this age of mistrust and distrust it is quite interesting to encourage "foreigners" to build something so lethal in this green and pleasant land.  They expect it to take 10 years to complete. So, if I haven't died of radiation related diseases by then, I can go.... hmmm... where I can go that hasn't been poisoned by humans... let me think... umm....well....maybe I might as well just die of a radiation related disease and be done with it. Surely there won't be nuclear power in the next world.

Fountain 16. L' Abbaye Notre-Dame de L' Annonciation 31 July

The monks recommended that I stay the night at the convent where the Benedictine sisters had a guest house.

An exquisitely dear nun greeted me with playful laughter, it was as if she had been waiting years for me and finally I had arrived. Although all the rooms were full she insisted that I stay and that she would find me somewhere to sleep. We wandered down the hallway and up and down the stairs and as we passed each door she would point and smile and announce the nationality of the guests inside. After the room with the Portuguese, we arrived at a cupboard where she dragged out a camp bed which we screeched along the tiles past the room where the Italians were staying to a small conference room. "This will do? Yes?"

                                                        

 My bed.

 It was was phenomenally uncomfortable, but a snug nest compared

 to a night on the plastic chairs at Athens airport.

 People come and stay here for all sorts of reasons. There was the group of Italian girls spending a week working with the nuns in the garden. A Belgian woman who smiled a lot came to walk in the hills. There was the family of a young monk who was taking his vows the next day.

Now, I have always had a fantasy to join a monastery and live in a peaceful community praying, working and studying. It doesn't seem a million miles away from what I already do alone.  (apart from the freedom to take off on a motorbike and a general lack of obedience)

So when I looked dreamily into a rose-tinted future of prayer and simplicity they corrected me with tremendous gravity. "C'est une vie très difficile". And as a mother of a young man, I could feel their worry, their sense of loss as well as their respect for a son who had consciously made an all encompassing commitment.

   

       

Ringing bells for 10 o'clock Mass.

 The church and convent were built 1986-2005 

a half hour walk from the monastery.

The nuns live a cloistered life so when their work demands contact with the public they are separated by a grille. In the convent shop, a nun sat by the till behind bars chatting with a customer. I presented her with my purchase, a cd of traditional French children's songs. For some reason I needed to explain that the cd was a gift for my great nephew in Las Vegas and that as children we sang of these songs. Such as Frere Jacques and Alouette.
 And much to my surprise, for I am not one to burst into song, I began to sing. After one line of missed notes and mispronounced words, she came to the rescue and joined in. Life could not get any more delightfully ironic than this: two women of a certain age, one in her religious habit and the other in her motorcycle leathers singing nursery songs together.
After we exhausted my repertoire I explained how I had met the monks at the fountain the day before. I showed her their photos on my Ipad.  I told her about the water fight and she squealed with delight as she called out their names.

                                      An Italian girl helping to cut the lavender by the car park.

Fountain 14. Abbaye de Sainte Madeleine le Barroux. 30 July

 I met Mariette Oudon while we were both sorting through a mound of enameled holy medals at a stall in the market in Malucene. She complimented my choice, the Virgin Mary on a pale green background, which made her look rather more like a Hindu goddess than the Mother of Jesus. We chatted a bit about holy medals, lighting candles and she urged me to go to the Abbaye, adding, with very sparkling eyes, that they bake the best bread in all of France. We paid for our medals and said a reluctant goodbye. As I stepped away she called out that she would remember me in her prayers.

Abbaye de Sainte Madeleine 

Crickets and lavender and me. 

The car park was "landscaped" like a Californian country club except that it was natural and there were no Mercedes or BMWs. There was only me, Louise and a flock of bees huddling around a dripping tap.

The church was absolutely still. I sat and listened to the blood course through my body and perhaps an hour passed. An older couple opened the north door and the sharp yellow light cut across the floor, the pews and my cheek, blinding me in one eye. I squinted to see their silhouettes: a broad bellied man with thin arms and a tiny woman with close cropped curls. They stood outside looking in, discussing something at length in loud breathy whispers. Their shoes scraped on the gravel underfoot and they let go of the door, returning me to the darkened silence.

Despite the tranquility and timelessness, the monastery is surprisingly new. 

Around 1970 a Benedictine monk pooteled up to the small church of St. Madeleine on his moped

 and was given permission to stay and live a monk's life. A couple days later a young and determined postulant appeared, and within a few months he joined the monk in his programme of prayer and thus the 'community' had begun. 

 Within a year, their numbers had grown to eleven monks and they started to restore a small ruined priory which they quickly outgrew.

 On the 21st of March 1980 they laid the foundation stone on which is engraved the motto of the monastery : Pax in Lumine (Peace in Light). This describes the mission of the monks: "to bring down a little of the peace of heaven." By 2002 there were sixty monks living a cloistered and prayerful existence in this little bit of heaven in the Vaucluse.

According to Benedictine Rule they devote their life to prayer, study and manual labour. Between their prayers, (seven times a day starting at 3:30 am on weekdays and nine times on Sundays) they bake the best bread in France, mill flour, tend vineyards and make wine, build, grow vegetables, keep bees etc.etc etc.

Four times a year the monks go walk about.

I wrote about this already in the August 1st posting.

The monastery can be Googled and youtubed. Moreover, one can download their services, 

sung in Gregorian chant, in real time on the computer or via an app on one's mobile!

My utterly naive and hand flapping amazement seems to indicate that I, 

Ms. Terribly Modern Cosmopolitan Woman, am a total luddite

 while these cloistered men are the ones who are digitally savvy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYRhbvKsCl8

from their website- http://www.barroux.org/

“There is only one problem in the whole world: restoring spiritual sense in people. Shower on them something like a Gregorian chant. ”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Fountain 13. Vaison la Romaine. 29 July

                                                        Bicycle Tree with fruit.

On the road linking Malaucene and Vaison la Romaine is a grand old oak tree dripping with bicycle fruit. Perhaps the seeds were sown by passing cyclists peddling to Mt. Ventoux. 

I almost said that taking this photo was my nearest brush with a car, then I remembered several other near death fountain experiences. Especially the one in Aix. Fortunately it is generally acknowledged that tourists, especially those with a camera, have no fear.

 Vasio Vocontiorum, or Vaison la Romaine to you and I, has been inhabited since the Bronze Age and by the end of 400 bc it was the capital of a Celtic tribe known as the Vocontii. They were later taken over by the Romans who left a mass of ruins, mosaics, a theatre, etc. including a sculpture that is now in the British Museum. After that it was taken over by the various Barbarians: Christians, who used the theatre benches as tombstones, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Clotaire I, the King of the Franks, various bishops and counts whose disputes were settled by Good Pope Clement etc etc. It was then nearly washed away by a flood in 1632 and then by another flood in 1992 which gained it a spot on prime time telly, in Discovery Channel's Destroyed in Seconds.

Whew, and now, all this history is history. Vaison is a gentle place with many tourists, geraniums, art galleries, gem stone shops and the very helpful Willy's Motorcycles where Louise gets new tyres, and more importantly, brakes, while I use their computer to catch up on emails.

                                  
                                  

 

                   Fountain 13 in the vernacular style surmounted with a pineapple.

In the haute ville, where narrow arched ways lean left and right and rough cobbles passively threaten to trip up and twist delicate ankles, the counts made life difficult for the bishops.   

     

Down below, on the other side of the river where the land is flatter, is a large, almost modern square. In the shade: a group of musicians sit with friends and snap open plastic take-away containers of anti-pasti. In the sun: readers tug their shorts higher up their thighs, pull out the bookmark and re- enter their imaginary world. In a dappled light: a toddler makes a beeline to a column of water which rises and falls from a hole in the pavement. Silent and purposeful, she attempts to hold the water down with her foot until her disposable nappy sags and her skin turns blue.