Merde du Printemps - 13 April 2011

13th April 2011

I’ll make this as brief as possible: some days are crap no matter where you are.

The mistral arrived yesterday, so pretty much wherever you stand you get free dermabrasion. You also get pollen in your eyes, up your nose and in your mouth if you leave it hanging open in disbelief. But hey, we’re in Provence, surely the mistral must be embraced. So off we go to the Camargue.

The Carmargue is known for – and I paraphrase the guidebooks – its unspoiled beauty, its salt flats, wild horses and bird sanctuary, with the Town of St.Marie Sur Mer being the jewel in the crown. What a desolate, unattractive place. Its few streets are made up of brutal 2-storey buildings and shops reminiscent of Canal Street in New York. The houses on the so-called sea front look out to a raised cement promenade – maybe there’s a glimpse of sea from the second floor. The sea? Big. The sand? Grey. The countryside? Flat as a pancake and as scrubby as a door mat. The horses? Tired. The birds?  They all looked like flamingos to me. Oh, we saw a beaver.

 A couple huddled in a sunny corner against the mistral's winds.

The local church with its patron saint and the letters written to her asking for miracles.

  The Camargue looks a lot like Brooklyn near JFK

Moving right along, we drive to a town whose name is permanently erased from my mind. The streets are paved with dog shit of the sit and slide variety. You can either look down and see it, or look up and step in it. Why, you ask, do we lunch here? We are hungry and eternally optimistic. The only café open has “Angels” in its name.  I wish I could tell you the food was heavenly. The appetizer of tuna and vegetables had obviously been eaten by the chef and then spat onto the plate. The chicken thigh was so enormous and tough the bird must have clocked quite a few hours on the treadmill. The “fresh” pasta wasn’t, nor the rancid oil that clogged it. Dessert was canned pineapple, which from its rusty hue had probably been in the can longer than a B movie. The ice-cream was a first for me: inedible. On the way back to the car I laughed so hard while side-stepping dog shit that I actually did wet myself.