Ester Laushway takes to the waters of Provence: the Rivers Sorgue, Durance and Verdon.
By Ester Laushway
Life in the south of France can be a beach, and a crowded beach at that. So when looking for a higher water-to-people ratio than is usually available along the Mediterranean I head from my home in Aix-en-Provence for the heart of Provence.
There, the hills and mountains are linked by a liquid lacework of clear streams and limpid lakes which offer a secluded, refreshing alternative to the sea. Deep green, tranquil blue, or transparent as glass, the cool, fresh waters of the Sorgue, the Durance and the Verdon gush, splash, cascade and flow through the landscape or sit still and welcoming, a peaceful mirror to the blue sky.
The Sorgue
Fontaine de Vaucluse: If I were to design an aquatic tour of Provence I would begin 20 miles east of Avignon at Fontaine de Vaucluse. Tucked away in the hills at the end of Vallis Clausa, the closed valley, this hamlet is both the source of the name of the department of the Vaucluse and, more spectacularly, the source of the Sorgue River. The spring that’s the source of the Sorgue has been a tourist attraction since at least the 14th century, when the poet Petrarch settled in this remote, wildly beautiful location, to dedicate himself to his writings.
Gushing out of the foot of a 755-foot-high cliff and tumbling over the rocks, the spring is one of the fastest flowing in the world – at least from late autumn through spring. When my mood calls for a spectacular, rushing torrent I might come here during those rainy seasons. In summer the fountain subsides back into its rocky bed, leaving an eerily still, bottomless pool. The summer months are ideal for admiring the village’s gorgeous setting, encircled by high, erosion-sculpted cliffs, shaded by immense plane trees and cooled by the crystalline waters of the Sorgue as it flows through an emerald-green bed of water plants.
From the village’s town hall it’s just a few steps to the main square, Place de la Colonne. A little bridge leads across the Sorgue, to the Petrarch Library-Museum, which stands near the spot where the poet lived from 1337 to 1353.
Cross back over the river and walk with it on your right to the Vallis Clausa Paper Mill. Powered by the Sorgue, which kept over two hundred mills of all types running in the 19th century, Villas Clausa still makes paper out using 15-century techniques. Visitors are taken through the process, step by step, from an overhead walkway. The lovely hand-made paper, with flower petals pressed into it, is sold, with or without printed poems, in the mill’s gift shop.
Next to the paper mill is the fascinating Ecomusée du Gouffre, Museum of the Underground World. Here, trained speleologists take visitors on an intriguing visit into the bowels of the earth, through a life-size reconstruction of an underground cavern, including cave paintings, a river, a small lake, and a speleologist’s camp.
Most intriguing for me is the history of the explorations of the funnel-shaped chasm out of which the Sorgue springs. In 1878, the first diver made it down to a depth of 75 feet. In 1983, a German diver completed a record dive to a depth of 672 feet. To begin to imagine what an achievement that was, it helps to know that it took him only 30 minutes to plunge down, but 8 ½ hours, in the pitch dark, in 10° C water, to make his way back up to the surface!
Unmanned explorations have penetrated as far down as 1010 feet – as deep as the Eiffel Tower is high – and have discovered other galleries and caverns that run down further still to unfathomable depths.
It’s a short, uphill stroll from there to the source of the Sorgue. By the time you reach the actual fountain, you can admire it all the more for knowing what a unique natural wonder it is.
L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue: Once it has burst out of the rocks, the Sorgue, content to have made a dramatic entrance, flows swiftly but serenely eastwards, towards L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. Originally inhabited by fishermen, who lived in houses built on stilts, the village is now home to the largest concentration of antiques dealers in southern France, 350 of them.
L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is located just beyond a divide in the river, and one of the most pleasant ways to spend two hours on a hot summer’s day, is to rent a canoe and paddle from Fontaine-de-Vaucluse to that divide. Even the most inexpert and youngest paddlers can navigate the cool, calm, shaded river here while admiring the water weeds on the bottom that give the Sorgue its emerald hue.
Two companies offer guided canoe trips, bringing you back by minibus to the point of departure: Canoë Evasion, south of Fontaine-de-Vaucluse and Kayak Vert, right in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.
The Durance
Between the Sorgue and the Verdon Gorges flows the once-mighty Durance. A formerly wild, tempestuous river that regularly flooded its banks, its sculpted effigy on the fronton of the former Grain Exchange in Aix-en-Provence is a bare-breasted temptress, with one foot dangling over the edge to show her unbridled nature. But the Durance’s days of behaving badly are long past now that several dams, hydroelectric plants, and a system of canals have reduced large parts of it to a lazy stream crawling sleepily among sandbanks and reeds, particularly in the dry summer season.
Driving east, or upstream, alongside the Durance offers unspoiled views of its broad bed and delicious places to swim. Among the latter, 12 miles northeast of Aix-en-Provence, is a former quarry outside the village of Peyrolles-en-Provence that has been transformed into an artificial lake, with grassy banks and a lifeguard on duty.
The Verdon
Twelve miles further on, the Durance River is quietly joined by the Verdon, which has exhausted itself from the Herculean task of carving out the Verdon Gorges, Europe’s deepest river canyon.
Further east the Verdon widens into the Lac d’Esparron, a tranquil water reservoir and nature reserve, where you can rent flat-bottomed electric boats that avoid noise and petrol pollution. The boats are child’s play to handle, letting you glide peacefully over the still waters, stopping to picnic or swim wherever you like.
Lac Sainte Croix, another 30 miles east, is a vast expanse of turquoise water created in 1975 by flooding of about 2200 acres as part of project to build a dam. Little beaches line its edge, where you can swim and rent pedal boats or canoes, and shady picnic grounds line. In summer, whole flotillas of brightly colored boats head to the northern part of the lake, by the village of Aiguines, where the emerald-coloured Verdon River emerges from its rocky canyon.
By pedal boat (excellent for abdominal muscles) you can enter the canyon. After about 30 minutes of pedaling, you’ll hear the rush of a waterfall and can stop to cool down with a swim.
The Verdon Gorges are a truly awesome sight: a 12-mile long chasm lined by vertical cliffs, sometimes 2300 feet (700 meters) deep and in its narrowest part only 20-feet wide. Just how the Verdon succeeded in etching its way so deeply through the hard limestone of the region remains a geological mystery. But however mysteriously it was created, the result is one of the showpieces of Provence, a spectacular end to this aquatic tour.
© 2010, Ester Laushway
Ester Laushway has lived in Provence for the past 15 years. She holds a degree in oenology, works as a restaurant critic for the Gantié Guide, and organizes food and wine tours.