Saturday in Provence - in pictures

 

 



 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A "Vignette" in France Magazine

 

A peek inside the March edition of France Magazine - Britain and the USA's     bestselling magazine about French life. I've written a personal account of a trip to Apt market with my daughter in search of the ghosts trapped in amber that you can sometimes see this time of year...

 

 

...when the stallholders selling the purest olive oil come to market:



 

As readers of this blog well know, I love writing and posting pictures about this market in Apt. I see that I described the town as a "scruffy old bear" but I meant it kindly, to imply the affection you might feel for a well-loved teddy rather than the threat of a starving grizzly. Though, if one such did ever make it here, there are more calming delicacies that you could shake a stick at.



 

If you haven't discovered France Magazine yet, I suggest you start with a visit to their website. You will find all sorts of delicious suggestions of new places that intrigue, as well as great photography and personal recommendations, recipes, history and even French language pages and puzzles. Make yourself a cup of coffee, sit back and have a little dream break.

Artisan soap from Provence

 

A few treats this week, to celebrate a pause in work on the manuscript. As I type this, my study smells deliciously of lemony verbena - verveine - from the handmade soap I bought from a stall at Apt market a few Saturdays ago. The scent burst into the air, redolent of freshness and lime, as soon as the clear film was peeled away.

 

This is a Frutadou, a clear soap that incorporates a slice of loofah, to "energize, activate the circulation and exfoliate", pictured above, and the verveine below. And I have to say, that although the soap is very soft, almost like hard jelly, the effect is gratifyingly tingly - though, for me, it's the fragrance that has the main energizing effect, every time.

 

What is so lovely about this kind of soap and associated products - these are by Savons du Sud - is the sheer exuberance of the scents and the fact that most of them are organic, made only of natural ingredients, many grown in the region.

Plants, fruits and herbs are combined using aromatherapy principles to promote well-being, and support specific issues such as heart health, relaxation and even the relief of headaches. There are soaps made of reviving tonics and gentle moisturisers. How can anyone resist these colours and pretty designs, either?

 

According to the leaflet that came with my purchase, Savons du Sud has a stall at Forcalquier market on Mondays and Lourmarin market on Fridays, as well as Apt on Saturday morning. If you happen to be there, it's well worth finding. If not, there is a website and online shop to look around.

 

And while the scent of any of the soaps will bring Provence to you, wherever you happen to be, this one is specially designed to keep us coming back: Night in Provence - to combat gloom (moroseness)? Cool and relaxing, with olive and lavender oil...

In season

Preoccupied this week with revisions to the work-in-progress, so not much time, or head space, for blogging. So I'm sharing these pictures, taken at Apt market. Is there a nation on earth that can make vegetables look as appealing as the French? It's not just the way the structure of the displays, but the graduations of colour. And it all tastes so much better than anywhere else, of course.

Chilling in Provence

 

Quite literally chilling, as it happens: the sun may be shining but it's unseasonably - unreasonably - cold here! At Apt market this morning, the locals were in their coats, muttering darkly. "Ce n'est pas normale..." "Bientot, l'hiver..."

 

We British are made of sterner stuff. After all, at least we can see the sun, which has been elusive on our northern isle so far this year. The Aptois warmed to our optimism in choosing an outside table for a morning coffee, and the stallholder from whom I bought a flimsy white shirt came close to a gruff embrace.

 

 

Best purchase was definitely the jumper, though. A pinky-grey confection with sparkles (very a la mode here) with all-important long sleeves. Not only will I blend in with my surroundings but I will be warm at last...

 

A wander through Apt

A spring morning in the South of France...just wandering through the streets of an ordinary little town feels like a sensuous adventure. In the medieval Rue des Marchands that runs through the centre of Apt, where the 800-year-old market takes place every Saturday morning, there are all kinds of intriguing doors to enter, from small brocantes (above) to patisserie emporia and perfume and wine shops.

Here's a glimpse inside Senteurs et Provence, which offers a range of fragrances you won't often be able to buy outside France:

They also stock these charming metal pomanders, which hold solid blocks of scent - there's a lovely selection of fragrances to choose from, and they make great gifts. I hang them in wardrobes, but I liked one large design filled with amber and orange blossom so much that I keep it by my bedside.

 

Just down the street are several linen shops, with vast ranges of the traditional Provencal boutis, the padded cotton squares used for bedspreads and tablecloths.

 

 

 

As it's France, food is all-important - so the displays outside the kitchen shop are equally alluring. If anything is ever going to entice me to purchase a garlic grater or a herb-grinder, these might!

 

 

The displays outside the flower shops are pictures in themselves...



 

 ...and the Patisserie Rousset always has a window display to draw you in closer...





Time for a coffee or a Perrier on on one of the squares, watching the world go by - and wondering whether it might be worth going back via the boutique to try on that crushed silk tunic top, and perhaps making a slight detour via V Comme Vin, the best wine store for miles around. And let's just pick up a copy of Paris-Match to read in a sunny corner of the garden later...

Waugh and peace

"The fortnight (...) passed quickly and sweetly - perhaps too sweetly; I was drowning in honey, stingless." I couldn't help but think of Evelyn Waugh's evocative line in Brideshead Revisited when I came across this honey stall at Apt market. Perhaps it was the honey-scented beeswax candles and his conversion to Catholicism.

Waugh was describing a visit to Venice in the 1930s, and it introduces a passage of sublime lyricism that moves from "fierce sunlight on the sands" to "cool, marble interiors; of water everywhere, lapping on smooth stone" to painted ceilings and palaces Byron might have known, to night fishing for scampi, and ending (as ever) in champagne cocktails at the English bar.

He is such a polished writer, who rarely uses a word too many; "I was drowning in honey, stingless" not only carries the image but the rythym of being pulled down into inescapable sweetness (say it out loud). Moreover, the drawn poison of "stingless" is positioned exactly where the reader who knows Waugh expects the sting in the tail. Given the bitter-sweet tone of the novel, it's nothing less than genius.

So, nothing much to do with honey or French markets, this post then. Except that in the abundance of varieties of honey - the acacia, wild flower and lavender - on offer, the sense of continuity and peace inherent in the work of the honey bees (and their worrying disappearance from some areas), the power of words, all seems connected. Or is that just the way a writer would think?

I'll leave you with another word to the wise expressed by Waugh:

"The truth is that self-respecting writers do not 'collect material' for their books, or, rather, they do it all the time in living their lives." (from Ninety-Two Days)

Apt, the market town

If any town has a claim to being a market town, it is Apt. Every Saturday morning for 800 years, there has been a market in its narrow streets and squares; from June to September there's scarcely room to move for all the summer visitors jostling to sample the cheeses and olives, and smell the lavender, herbs and soaps. Now the stalls are full of spring goodies: the local white asparagus (sweet and wonderful with vinaigrette for lunch) and imported strawberries.

Much as I enjoy the market (I blogged about it in greater detail here: The 800-year-old market) I have to say that this is a place I love to wander around on a slow day, visiting all my favourite spots, like the parfumerie Senteurs et Provence, the bric-a-brac shops, the wonderful Librarie La Fontaine bookshop, the V Comme Vin wine boutique and the great mediaeval cathedral at the heart of this small, vibrant working town.

There are Roman ruins of a theatre currently being excavated after their discovery in the cathedral crypt - or rather the very start was found there: the theatre stretches far under the town. There are museums tucked away behind the streets of shops, telling the history of this unassuming place in the Calavon valley at the foot of the great Luberon ridge. The backstreets hold surprises, like the neighbourhood café called Du Coté de chez Swann after Proust's famous literary volume, and fabulous candied fruit sweet shops, one of Apt's traditional products.

Strolling with my camera the other day, I came across a display of old photographs showing that this was always a thriving hub of local commerce. This must have been taken a hundred years or more ago:

Even in the decades I've known Apt, it has been smartened up, especially along the main streets and around the squares. In the 1980s it was quite run-down but now there's pretty paint on shutters and stucco fronts of the buildings. But you don't have to go off the beaten track to get a glimpse of the age-old place where alleys and archways through thick stone walls attest to its long habitation in warrens of interlinking living spaces.

And that's part of the fascination too: the way the past exists alongside the present in every sense. Some of these walls have been in place for a thousand years. Who passed through these streets and what was happening in their lives? I can wander around for hours just letting my imagination take flight.