Provence, Adieu

Our last Friday in Provence was declared another day of R&R.  Judith and LouAnne caught up on some postcards in the morning as Ted strolled around the old Centre Ville of Uzes taking photographs.  They all went over to the Place aux Herbes, the central market square in the old town, for a nice lunch and glass of wine at tables under the huge plane trees.  I, of course, am not as smart as they are, so went on another 40 km walk, this time along the Gardon Gorge. I did, however, plan things a bit better – I left at 06:45, which only gave me an hour’s walk in the dark, and I had bought a torch in the supermarket to help me read the map.

The limestone country has very shallow soil on the hillsides, and irregular low annual rainfall. The slanting early-morning sun rays beautifully showed up the ancient terraces around the villages. The early farmers, faced with poor rocky soil would pick up stones and build them into fences.  This would give them deeper and deeper soil that would build up on the uphill side of the fences, eventually forming flat terraces on which they would plant olives, almonds and grapes. A family might also have some chickens, some pigs that they would run in the communal forest, and perhaps a son tending goats on the hillsides.  They would sell their excess at weekly markets, and with the proceeds buy things that they could not grow or make themselves. Some of their children might show some artisan’s skill, and specialize in a trade, and become comparatively wealthy

This lifestyle would have gone on generation after generation. But in the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries things changed.  Modern forms of transport allowed people to move around the country more readily.  Electricity and water supply were extended further throughout the country, and people wanted a radio and a washing machine. The terraces alone could not provide the income for these additions, so the family would need to work for other people more and more off the terraces. Eventually the terraces would take too much time out of the working week to be worth the effort, and they and the smaller farm houses would be abandoned as families moved into towns where there was reliable work. The terraces are still there with their stunted trees, and derelict houses nearby. Eventually even the larger farms would not be viable, to be bought up by wealthy English ex-financiers and the Parisian riche, and people with a love of the country. But they are being maintained and restored and extended, and almost always with real acknowledgment of their history and setting.  And rural France is very much the better for it.

The Gardon Gorge is truly beautiful. The river has cut a deep canyon down into a limestone plateau.  The high points are only about 130 m above river level, but the limestone cliffs are a brilliant white in the sunshine.  The horizontal strata contain huge caves, some hundreds of metres long.  These caves have been used for hundreds of thousands of years for shelter by humans from Neolithic to modern times. Many of them have had religious significance from the earliest times.  I walked down a steep path to an old settlement called la Baume. According to tradition one of the caves here was the hermitage of a Greek named Veredemus, who later Bishop of Avignon in 700 AD, and later still was sanctified as St Veredeme. A chapel was built on the site in the 8^th Century which became a pilgrimage destination. It is said to be the oldest surviving Christian structure in the region. I walked up a steep narrow path to the chapel.  The original may have been 8^th Century, but the present looks very much a 19^th Century restoration.

The present occupants of Veredemes Grotto, or cave, are four endangered species of chauve-souris (tr bald mouse) or bat. I walked about 50 m into the cave with my torch, but no-one seemed to be home.

It seems that Blogspot comments are temperamental, and only work occasionally. You can always email Judith and me, or LoaAnne and Ted to say Hi!

Chris