Some impressions and practical information concerning the area covered in Parts 1 and 2 of “Eat like a sixth grader, drink like a wine enthusiast,” including Nyons, Taulignan and Grignan and featuring olives, lavender, silk and Madame de Sévigné.

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Nyons
After dinner I set out alone from the Hotel Colombet to haphazardly explore the cobbled streets and alleys of the oldest portion of Nyons. I eventually made my way an ancient bridge arching high over the narrow Eygues River. It was dark. The bridge was blocked at my end. In the dark it didn’t appear to go anywhere one would want venture at night. The area felt abandoned, forgotten.

It was just an impression on a cold night but the truth didn’t matter. There’s an attractive mystery that comes from wandering through an old town at night, a hesitation before turning corners and walking under archways, a mix at apprehension and relieve at seeing someone walking towards you in the opposite direction against a backdrop of stones walls and strangely cast shadows. It’s the reason I’d set out alone rather than accept an invitation from the others to visit the town with them once they’d finished the wine. I didn’t want to visit; I wanted to explore.

In daylight the following morning the mystery had evaporated. The shops were opening. The ancient bridge was now interesting for its form rather than its enigma. The shutters and the rooftops of the old town and the vegetation along the hill on the opposite side of the bridge all spoke of Provence.

Nyons is best known for the table olives and olive oil produced in the surrounding area. The olive oil is a smooth and light with a mild taste of spice and a nip of pepper. The unlikely traveler passing through the area from the end of November through December can enjoy the view and buzz of the olive harvest. Visitors in summer will more likely be seeking out lavender fields in bloom when exploring the area of Provence and Haute Provence, including the Nyons region.

The cultivation of lavender has increased substantially since the early 1980s in the provençal areas of southeast France (Drome, Alpes de Haute Provence, Haute-Alpes, Vaucluse), whose land and various altitudes lend themselves to growing three main types of lavender—aspic lavender, “true” lavender and lavandin. Lavandin, the most ordinary of the three, is what grows in the lower-lying areas around Nyons.

Nyons has a distillery for lavender and other aromatic plants, Bleu Provence, one of about 120 such distilleries in France. Visitors can learn about the production and distilling of lavender now and in the past I the distillery’s little museum open. There’s also a selling all things lavender. See Bleu Provence’s website for opening times and entrance fees. www.distillerie-bleu-provence.

For suggestions of itineraries of “Lavender Roads” throughout Provence and the Alps that can by car, motorcycle, even bike see this official tourist board website.

Taulignan
Taulignan is a small town that’s a 20-minute (12-mile) drive from Nyons. It has a population of 1600 of which only 160 within the medieval walls. A quick walk through that medieval portion gave the impression of a gated community that hasn’t yet figured out parking restrictions. I suspect that it’s deserving of a more leisurely stroll, however Taulignan’s Silk Museum was my actual destination.

The history of silk production is one of those many things that I’d hardly think myself curious about, but once inside the museum I found myself absorbed for a good 30 minutes by the history of silk production beginning in the area from the 17th century until the end of the 19th century, with a particular emphasis on 18th- and 19th-century developments in techniques and machinery. There are explanatory panels in French and English. The museum also tells the story of local silk factories that housed and employed orphans and disinherited girls.

Locally produced silk thread was transported to Lyon, formerly the center for the production of silk fabrics and products in France. France no longer produces silk though a tiny remnant of the silk fabric and garment business still exists in Lyon. The agriculture surrounding Taulignan, once marked by up to 13,200 mulberry trees and their silk worms, is now devoted to vines for Cote du Rhone wines and lavender with the occasional honey producer and truffle hunter, as throughout the region.

The Silk Museum (Musée de la Soie) is located just outside the main opening in the medieval ramparts. See the musem’s website for opening times and entrance fees. More information (in French only) about the village itself can be found here.

Grignan
The hilltop castle of Grignan, four miles from Taulignan, can be seen in the distance as you approaches from the plain. Its architecture and interior are less notable than its place in French literary history. This is where Madame de Sévigné, the celebrated figure of 17th-century epistolary literature, would come to visit her daughter Madame de Grignan, with whom she otherwise and frequently corresponded with by letter.

“My heart is at rest when it is next to you” (Mon cœur est en repos quand il est auprès de vous), she wrote upon leaving her daughter after a visit in 1673, before concluding “alas, here we are back in letters” (hélas ! nous revoilà dans les letters.) Reading that letter makes me feel nostalgic for the days not so long ago when people were more interested in voice communication rather than in texting.

Madame de Sévigné’s collected letters reveal this intense mother-daughter relationship as well as life, fashion, literature and politics at the Court of Versailles during the time of Louis XIV. Those letters are likely to be on the curriculum of those students now eating 25% organic food at lunch throughout the department.

The countryside of Grignan, Tricastin and the Popes Enclave, all in this same general area, is leading producer of the hunted black truffle “tuber melanosporum.” Grignan is just five miles north of Europe’s largest truffle market held on Saturdays from mid-November to mid-March in the town of Richerenches (see this article on France Revisited). Truffles are integrated into menus throughout the region at that time of year, in dishes such as the creamy scrambled eggs with truffles (brouillade de truffes) that I had just outside of the old town at one of the finer local restaurants La Table des Delices.

For a photo-reportage about this region in winter see here.

End note for cyclists: We are just north of Mont Ventoux, the largest mountain in the sector, known to cyclists both amateur and professional for challenging gradients up to 10%.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

– Return to Part 1 of Drome Provencale: Eat Like a Sixth Grader, Drink Like a Wine Enthusiast
– Return to Part 2 of Drome Provencale Eat Like a Sixth Grader, Drink Like a Wine Enthusiast

The post Drome Provencale: Medieval Towns, Castles, Olives, Lavender and Silk (Part 3 of 3) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

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By Elizabeth Esris

If you buy a calendar for a Francophile around the holidays, the kind in which each month is a spectacular scene from a different region in France, chances are that July or August will feature a view of long, arching rows of lavender running to a gray stone abbey that evokes romantic visions of Provence.

I drove into that very scene on a summer day as I approached the Abbey of Sénanque. The view of the mass of vibrant lavender against the stark eloquence of the 12th century Romanesque monastery took my breath way.

I wasn’t alone. The spectacular scene is shared by many visitors drawn to this rural valley just north of the chic and stunning perched village of Gordes. Walking the dusty path from the parking lot amid the quiet conversation of others, I knew that I needed to move beyond the photo op in order to make my visit a lasting and intimate experience.  When I approached the old stone walls, I wanted to engage my imagination as I learned about their history.

The Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque  was established when local lords donated land to build a Cistercian monastery in 1148, 50 years after the founding of the mother of Cistercian abbeys at Citeaux in Burgundy. At Sénanque, twelve monks were brought to live in huts while construction of the abbey was begun.

The church of the monastery was consecrated in 1178, though it wasn’t until 1250 that other essential buildings such as residences and the refectory (dining hall) were complete. Over time additional structures of a self-sustaining medieval religious community were added, including a cloister, a chapter house for meetings, a scriptorium for writing of manuscripts, and barns and other outbuildings that were part of a series of granges for food production.  Four mills completed a productive agricultural community that enabled the diligent and entrepreneurial Cistercians to lord over a prosperous center of influence in Provence well into the 15th century.

In addition to being an industrious order that worked hard to create efficient agricultural techniques, the Cistercians also established a core group of lay members at the Abbey of Sénanque who toiled at the most arduous manual tasks in the granges and at the mills. These men lived within the monastery, but slept and ate in separate quarters.

Perhaps it was inevitable that with prosperity came exploitation of the Cistercian’s original religious mission. The riches of the agricultural operations afforded temptations that gave way to worldly pleasures and diversion from the precepts of simplicity and service. Profiteers within the order eventually took control of the monastery in the 1400s, and it fell into decline because of mismanagement and corruption.

The Cistercian mission for a life of austerity and manual labor was reinforced once more at Sénanque in 1475 when a new abbot, John Casaletti from Avignon, was appointed to oversee the monastery and return focus to the values of the Cistercians. The abbey prospered again and became an agent for ministering to the poor, including caring for victims of the plague early in the 16th century.

In 1544 the abbey became a victim of the Wars of Religion when it was attacked by the Vaudois whose oppression and slaughter in the region had been sanctioned by the Catholic Church since the 12th century. The Vaudois pillaged the abbey and destroyed the lay quarters. The Abbey of Sénanque never recovered its prosperity and influence, and during the French Revolution the property was nationalized.

In ensuing years the monastery changed hands a number of times until monastic life was again established in 1988 by the small Cistercian order that lives there today. The community is for the most part financially self-sufficient through income from tours of the monastery, production of lavender and honey, sales of related items in the gift shop, and hosting of overnight visitors, though on occasion the French state and the department of Vaucluse have provided financial assistance to keep this historic setting alive and in good condition.

Learning some of the history of the Abbey of Sénanque in guidebooks, in pamphlets, and during a tour led me to ruminate about monastic and rural life in medieval Provence.  I imagined the narrow mountain road (now D177), which leads to the valley from Gordes, as a dusty mountain path upon which novices came by foot, or perhaps on saddle, to begin a life of silence, simplicity, and long hours of labor in the fields.  I asked myself who they were and what drew them to such an austere life. I envisioned them nearing the rugged stone walls that would become their refuge—perhaps their prison—and I tried to sense their last images of home and the anticipation of what awaited them.

The Abbey of Sénanque was built without a main door to the primary façade; this emphasized the aestheticism of the Cistercians and their desire that the monastery be unadorned.  It also reinforced the insular quality of the community and its purpose in sustaining a simple and silent life away from distractions that a grand portal might communicate to those outside the order.

It was in late June, amid the brilliance of the early blossoming of lavender, when I stepped inside the monastery.

When the voice of the tour guide echoed through the severe but beautiful vaulted dormitory where at night the monks once slept fully clothed in marked sections on the hard floor, I asked myself if they slept peacefully, fatigued by the day’s labor or if they were stalked by dreams of life outside their cloister.

In the scriptorium, the chamber where monks in medieval times worked copying manuscripts, I imagined faces bearing down on parchment and the meticulous lines of letters that inched slowly across the page, formed by hands that ached by day’s end and eyes that wearied with the dimming of natural light.  It is the only room with a fireplace—heated so that the monks could perform their delicate work.

The abbey church was and is still a place of prayer and contemplation. (It’s possible for visitors to attend mass here.) Even though it is stark, the symmetry of the nave speaks of artistry—restrained artistry, an aesthetic that denies excess but is unable to deny beauty. The aim might have been austerity, but when the eye follows the arches to the line in the vaulted ceiling, the radiance of sunlight on stone feels like adornment.

The most memorable part of the abbey is outside, where the eye collides with an impossibly beautiful vision: thousands of lavender flowers, growing in even rows, sway with abandon in the valley breeze against the gray walls of the monastery. It’s at once simple and sublime. Large slate tiles top roof lines. Low sections of the abbey emphasize the rustic nature of the setting, while the rounded lines of the apse and the angles leading to the bell tower suggest the divine. How many stories played out in the heat of the Provençal sun and behind the secretive windows of the monastery? The eye returns to the lavender and back again to the monastery.

On a warm summer day, arriving very early or late in the afternoon, one can avoid seeing buses and hordes of tourists with cameras taking the inevitable shots of lavender against the gray stone. It is possible then, to indulge in fantasy of how it was in medieval times—or how it is today among the robed inhabitants. I visited twice, both times in late June before the height of the tourist season but just in time for the lavender. Both times I stooped low to watch large black bees hover over blossoms , and I looked through the lavender to the abbey wondering how villagers viewed this monastery and it inhabitants so long ago. I imagined an alter ego sitting atop the roof in summer, ruminating about the insular monks who lived within.

Those reflections evolved into the poem, “Musing at the Abbey.”

Musing at the Abbey

In a tide of lavender
arms dappled by sun and stem
vie with black bees for nectar.
The stone wall of the abbey
is weary of the artist’s brush and
bleach of lenses.
It breathes them away
with memory of silent skies and
novices on dusty roads.

Women appear on the tiled roof
with gauze skirts draped
between their thighs.
They bathe in the June sun,
listen to the steps of monks
inching toward prayer,
and whisper to them
with attar from the blooms.

I join them in their hopeless vigil,
my arms hungry
for the heat of summer prayer.
They know me from a dozen other churches.
We have stalked robed ghosts before,
seducing ourselves with chants
of hooded profiles
who share lavender
with black bees
in a quiet coupling
of earth and the divine.

© Elizabeth Esris

Poem first published as “At the Abbey” in Women Writers, June, 2009.
Accompanying text first published in France Revisited, Dec. 2011

Also read Elizabeth’s explorations of and poem about the massacre of the Vadois at Mérindol in the Luberon area of Provence.

The post The Abbey of Senanque: Lavender, Old Stones and Poetry in Provence appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.