24th March, 2011
We’re on a 4 day trip to the Luberon Valley, heading over to Bonnieux ultimately, to meet new friends. We let the GPS lady tell us which route to take and end up on the mountain road toward Grenouliers. It’s awesome. You know, the way awesome used to be before it became a meaningless exclamation. We drive zig-zags, and tunnels with water pouring through their ceilings. It’s just us and the mountains.
No cars. Not a leaf to be seen until we get to the top of Grenouliers and, rounding yet another tricky bend, a burst of pink Spring against the bluest of skies.
It’s not just the color that is a surprise, it’s the gentle waving of the branches which are the only discernible movement in this vast landscape. We park and walk down into the tiny village, stopping for a pain chocolat. If it weren’t so early we’d lunch here. This is not a tourist town. It’s a real Provence community: the mayor’s house, post office, grocery store, tabac and a restaurant outside which one of the tables is filled with weather beaten locals. This is the beginning of a perfect French day, a day filled with apercus and bon chance. We continue our drive through the Gordon Gorge. There is no straight-of-way for hours and after a while the car feels like a swaying bassinet.
We stop just before Castellane, on the Route Napolean – and believe me, after driving it, one has new respect for Napolean’s foot soldiers! – beckoned by one of those roadside restaurants one dreams of. Isn’t this part of why one travels without an itinerary, to luck-in to just such a place as this? Auberge Du Tullon is a family-run hotel/restaurant with superb food. My lunch came in a mason jar. Very froggy. A simple soup with no need of seasoning because the ingredients were full of themselves: poisson, carrots, celery, artichoke heart, fennel, potato. Joel has lambs’ tongues, a plate of unuttered baa’s, accompanied by rough-mashed, pale yellow potatoes. Dessert? But of course. For Joel a spectacular tarte tatin and for me a nougat semi-fredo, so deep and rich I couldn’t finish it – a first for me! Of course, we
were given a complimentary panacotta first. Oh and I didn’t mention the fig sorbet, did I? Palette cleanser my foot.
I take the wheel after our feast and drive on to the gay little village of Castellane, and again, I mean gay in it’s original sense. That being said, here, as in everywhere in Provence, men are playing with their balls. Boules. Same thing. They fondle, jiggle, clang and toss them.
While we are grateful for Lady GPS, we don’t always trust her. She can be one calculating bitch. So we ask a young couple, opening up their café for the season, for directions to Manosque. They suggest the long route through the Gorge Verdon and off we go. WOW! Talk about scale. Talk about winding roads. I’m still at the wheel and at one point, maneuvering a blind turn under a massive overhang of mountain I get the giggles – I mean really, unless you are a goat this terrain is ridiculous to navigate. The power of the mountains, the treachery of the roads, the patches of snow clinging to the forest floor and pitted against this brutal landscape, the pale pink blossoms of wild almond trees.
Only two man-made things have the power to compete with nature. The first is a burnt-out car sitting in solitary horror by the wayside.
The other I’ll let speak for itself, suffice it to say it takes balls to compete with nature on this level.
Around 5:30 we start looking for a place to bed-down and are hoping for a luck-in as good as our lunch find. After 4 straight hours of rocky roads, roundabouts, falling rock and “deviations” we are getting a tad touchy.
We cheat and look at the Michelin Guide which recommends a “pleasant place to stay” about 10 miles ahead. Oh, God. More deviations. Lady GPS, who usually instructs us in dulcet English tones, is beginning to lose it, too. Turn left NOW, she says through gritted teeth. NOW. Make a U turn HERE. (Did she just call me an idiot?) Go left. NOW - down someone’s driveway. (Now who’s the idiot?) Now immediately bear right, NOW– into a parking lot. We shut her off, roll down the window and stop every 100 yards, point to the Michelin and ask, Ou est cette Auberge – which shall remain nameless – Adroit. Gauche, Tout Droit, Gauche, la. Jesus. Finally we get there.
We know as soon as we drive into the parking lot that it’s god-awful. But we are so exhausted we keep telling each other it will be better inside. The reception tells us otherwise and still we persevere, up dull stairs, through a nasty door, along a dank and dim hallway until we open the door to our room and gag on room “freshener”. Those stinking pine-trees that hang from rearview mirrors in NY taxis? Chanel No.5 compared to this. What was Michelin thinking! We leave, citing allergy to perfume.
We’re in one of those potentially defeating moments when you seriously consider sleeping in the car. But we really do know better. We know that these are precisely the moments that offer us the chance to trust in the universe. And so we continue on the road. It’s dark now, but I just know that around one of these bends our heaven-for-one-night will appear and sure enough, after about 5 miles, it does. I have no idea what it is about the unassuming sign that tells me this is the place, which is un-seeable from the road. But I can feel it in every bone of my body. We drive into an old courtyard. The hotel is an ancient stone building. The grounds are gorgeous, even in this dim light. The concierge understands without my barely saying a word. You would like zee best room, he says. Oh yes, I say. I don’t care what it costs. I give you zee best room, he says, for a good price. I know, I know, we’ve all heard this before. He shows us to a separate building, carries our bags upstairs and opens the door onto an enormous luxurious bedroom and best of all, a bathroom almost as big with a tub for two. I give you for 100 euro, he says, including breakfast. Mon Dieu. AND there’s a bistro downstairs which serves us one of the most delicious meals ever. Goodnight.
