Fete de la Liberation

 

It was 1944 again, for one night only, in the small town of Apt yesterday to mark the 70th anniversary of its liberation. Klaxons sounded as US Army Jeeps and trucks raced through the main roads, and the Stars and Stripes fluttered alongside the Tricolore. It wasn't one of the great set pieces such as those at Normandy and Toulon; the participants dressed as American soldiers were all French - but it was utterly charming. 

 

 

 

 

 

As ever, the joy is in the historical detail. Here is a truck used by the French resistance, with its hunting bag hanging from the driver's door, the member riding shotgun, and around the back, the jerry cans of black market petrol, shovels, ropes and the bicycles that were a vital means of transport and conveying messages between underground cells.



 

 

 Among all the uniforms, the ladies those riding in the vehicles had also dressed the part...

A plaque was unveiled at the top of the steps to the Salle des Fetes, while inside a US Army film ran continually, showing the progress of Operation Dragoon seventy years ago up through Peyrolles and across the Durance river by makeshift bridge, until the troops of the 45th Infantry Division, known as the Thunderbirds, were cheered through Manosque and took Apt on August 22.

Meanwhile, outside in the square a gigantic picnic was under way and a swing band played, followed by dancing.

 

Liberation of Provence

Seventy years ago today, the American-led liberation of southern France reached the town of Apt. The previous day, the tanks and Jeeps had rolled into Aix-en-Provence (above), chasing the fleeing German army of occupation. But today is the day remembered in Apt, with a plaque on a small roundabout planted with cypresses and flowers where the main road, the old N100 now the D900, arrives from Céreste.

This plaque is no anniversary special; it has been here for as long as I can remember, passed daily by the locals as they go about their business, and the tourists who swell the town's life during the summer. It is a poignant reminder not only of the event itself, but that - contrary to myth - the French remember it with profound gratitude. In the villages and small towns of the Luberon, the wartime cooperation between the brave members of the resistance and the RAF is recalled with pride and enduring mutual respect. Should the war be discussed with visitors from Britain, the US and Canada, it is with a sense of shared history.

This was the starting point of my novel The Sea Garden, in which the story plays out against the background of the Liberation which began with the Allied invasion on the coast at St-Tropez. The settings in the book can be seen here: the island of Porquerolles just below Hyeres, and Manosque to the north-east of Pertuis.

For weeks, the local newspaper La Provence (from which this map is taken) has been telling the story day by day. Yesterday's page included a fascinating piece by Yves Reynaud about the day the Americans arrived in the village of Tour d'Aigues near Pertuis on the southern slopes of the Luberon mountains.

What the French noticed first of all was that the harsh sound of hobnailed Nazi boots had gone from the silent streets, to be replaced by the soundless rubber of the American footwear - and music! The "Yanks" chewed gum nonchalantly as they offered cigarettes and chocolate to the villagers - the French offered fruit in return. In the village centre, the whole population clamoured around the Jeeps and Dodges, vehicles so modern as to be curiosities in themselves. Upbeat tunes were playing from the Jeeps: songs they had never heard before.

The momentous day ended in the Café Innocenti - today, the Café du Chateau - with laughter, talk, drinking and dancing. One of the GIs sat down at the old piano and started pounding out Boogie-Woogie. Two days later the Americans had pushed on north, but the villagers continued the party by collecting eggs from every farm and smallholding. An immense celebratory omelette composed of more than a thousand eggs was cooked and shared by the whole community.

This evening in Apt, the town's liberation will be marked by two parades through the town with some of the original vehicles; the laying of wreaths and honouring of the dead; the unveiling of a new memorial plaque in the Place de la Mairie in the presence of Lieut-Col Tim Stoy and Captain Monika Stoy, representing the US Army; a showing of a newsreel film of the event; an aperitif outside the Hotel de Ville; and dancing under the trees to a swing band.

For more about the activities of the French resistance in this area, you can read more in these past blog posts about Céreste, and Samuel Beckett at Roussillon. More on Apt tomorrow.

Two bikes and a baguette

 

OK, I should be working, but on the other hand, a bit of exercise is excellent for freeing up the mind...so it wasn't much of a contest. The Luberon Véloroute is a cycle track that snakes along the length of the valley and beyond to Forcalquier, a transformation of the disused railway line. April seems the perfect time to get pedalling, before the summer heat and tourists.

 

We hired some bikes in Apt and set off in the direction of Avignon (not that we planned to get anywhere close). There are the usual scenes of an industrial estate on the way out of town, but even then the height of the path on a old embankment allowed us to see a reclamation yard that we didn't know was there, and spent a happy ten minutes pointing out interesting archways and pillars for the fantasy garden.

 

In the photo above, I've stopped on the Roman bridge, the Pont Julien. Behind me to the left is the perched village of Lacoste. It was easy cycling through pretty orchards and farms, always with the Luberon hills rising above us. We got to Lumières, near Goult, to buy a picnic lunch with ten minutes to spare before the village shop shut. (Now that would have been a disaster!)
 

 

A baguette sticking out of the panier, some simple ingredients and a cherry orchard in blossom - what could be better for a classic French pique-nique?

 

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...

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.

Happy Easter!

Easter has sent the chocolate makers of France into a frenzy of ever more elaborate creations. Shops are stuffed with eggs, rabbits and hens, all presented with miles of ribbon and chic plastic packaging. Here's the window of Apt's finest patissier-confiseur J. C. Rousset - a personal opinion, of course, as the French will happily debate the relative merits of competing establishments (especially where bread and desserts are concerned) with gusto and forensic attention to detail.

And it may be Easter Sunday but there were plenty more shoppers with exacting standards at the local Vide Grenier this morning. This may be of lesser quality than a Brocante - literally, a "Clear the Attic" sale - but the crowds were out and the prices ranged as ever from the near-gift to the insanely optimistic. (Perhaps both ends of the scale are a reaction to the eye-wateringly high cost of all the Easter chocolate: the large egg pictured, gleaming dark and red-marbled, was 53 euros...) 

A bright sun shone cruelly on many of the dustier items but in amongst the mountains of rubbish, you can always find gems at these events. Today there was plenty of nice glassware, and some interesting pieces of garden furniture. Here's what we came back with, given that our intent was just a stroll around under blue skies: a small wooden side-table, useful in all sorts of places, for 5 euros and a pretty tray for one euro. Last of the big spenders, eh? But there's nothing like coming back with a bargain!

The lavender distillery

Small lavender fields are woven into the landscape all the through the hills around the town of Apt. These are not the huge commercial concerns of Sault and Valensole, but smallholdings tended in the traditional way. When the sheaves of mauve flowers are picked in July, the distilling begins, sometimes in the field itself, and a heavenly scent is carried on warm evening breezes.

Last summer I discovered the Distillerie Les Coulets, near the village of Rustrel. As you arrive down a narrow country track, time stands still, and you enter the world of Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. Although Pagnol’s enduring stories were set further south towards the coast at Marseille, the same rural idyll really does seem to linger in every stone and corner.



An old still, once used to extract the essence from the lavender flowers, stands proudly outside the farm. This is a tiny, family-run business: Christian Borde & Fils. The lavender is grown in the surrounding fields and brought to an unassuming barn for the magic of scent distillation to begin.   

The water in the still was bubbling merrily. At the table, one of the much older women known to us simply, namelessly, as Madame, was thrashing the head of a sheath against a box to break off and collect the flowers. Then with one deft sifting motion she showered the ground with any remaining remnants of stalk and leaf and an even more intense cloud of lavender scent exploded into the warm air.

                                                          From The Lantern

The alembic still is heated. Then, when steam has risen through the lavender flowers it is pushed up through the pipe that comes out of the top, and then down through the cooling cylinder full of cold water that coils round and round. At the end of the process, the liquid contains the essence of the flower, its oil and scent.

With this essential oil, the Distillerie les Coulets makes different strengths of lavender preparations, from the pure essence which must be diluted – with almond oil, perhaps – before it comes into contact with the skin, to soothing massage oils that Madame Borde makes up and labels in her workshop, which is barely larger than a garden shed.

It’s a truly charming enterprise, and the resultant natural oils have a deep and sweet, almost honeyed aroma, a world away from synthetic mass-produced fragrances.  

The 800-year-old market

The narrow medieval streets were crammed with stalls and people, shouting, discussing where to buy the best vegetables, the most succulent game; smells rose of roasting chickens and chestnuts and freshly-made pizza; three squares, north, south and west offered meat, fish, fruit, carved wood, spices, kitchenware, linens, racks of Indian-made clothes and leather goods from North Africa, bead jewelry, the scented olive oil soaps from Marseille and all varieties of produce made from lavender.

                                                          From The Lantern

Saturday is market day in Apt, and it’s one of the most famous markets in the region. They say there has been a market held here every Saturday morning for eight hundred years, in an unbroken link with the past.

The Rue des Marchands is a narrow paved street that cuts through the heart of this alluring little town, down the side of the cathedral where the remains of a Roman theatre have been found deep in its foundations. In summer there are stalls on both sides, and crowds of such density that you can hardly move at times.

The Cathedral of St-Anne was established in 1056, though the present structure was completed in the 17^th century. At this time of year, there’s room to breathe, and to marvel at the stalls where vegetables are set out with artistry, from the tiny endeavour that holds only a vast bouquet of ravishing radishes, or the big stall in the main square that offers this checkerboard of tomatoes and artichokes.

Then there are are stalls of linen, in all the colours of Provence, like these tablecloths:

And these great cakes of nougat, the hazelnut and sugar confection famously made in Montelimar...

Finally, back in January I wrote about the candied fruit for which Apt is renowned (here), and promised to bring back some more. This glorious display is from La Bonbonnière, the specialist sweet shop in the Rue de la Sous-Préfecture – feast your eyes!

Candied Fruit



Throughout our corner of Provence, fruit and nut trees stand in regimented orchards. In spring they blossom in checkerboards: billows of white from the almonds, pink from the cherries, and waves of raspberry-ripple flowers from the legions of apples and pears.

For centuries fruit has been brought to be candied in the small town of Apt which stands at the wilder end of the Luberon valley. There are records that show the appointment in 1348 of one Auzias Maseta of Apt to be “excouyero in confisserias”, the purveyor of fruits preserved in sugar, to Pope Clément VI of Avignon.

Even if, like me, you find it all too sweet for your taste, you can still marvel at the shop window displays of Fruits Confits, for they are tableaux of beauty. Not only will you find all the local fruits: apricots, peaches, melons, plums, mandarins, lemons and figs as well as exotic imports these days, but also candied orange peel, violets and rose petals.

There’s a tradition of proud artistry among the confiseurs that may well have culminated in 1902, when the Reboulin factory succeeded in candying an entire fig tree – branches, leaves and fruit – and shipping it to a Chicago exhibition where it proved a sensation.

The photo above is just a tiny taster, from the arcade shop in Fontaine de Vaucluse, but a wander around the shady Roman-medieval streets of Apt, taking care not to miss the Confiserie le Coulon and the Confiserie Marcel Richaud, both on the Quai de la Liberté, will reveal sugared harvests of positively mythological wonder…