From December through March, while grey is the predominant color of the skies of northern Europe, the coastal roads on the Côte d’Azur in southeast France burst into a Kodachrome blur of neon-yellow flowers wedged between a brilliant blue sky and the turquoise Mediterranean.

The mimosa, a hardy Australian acacia, was first introduced to France by the explorer James Cook, who presented the seeds to the future Empress Josephine. But mimosa madness didn’t take root until the late 19th century when the northern aristocrats wintering on the Riviera brightened their holiday villas with this cheery foreign flower that stubbornly stuck to its Australian blooming schedule.

The Côte d’Azur remained a winter destination until the advent of Brigitte Bardot and the bikini turned the region into a summertime fantasy land. More recently, with the goal of reinvigorating winter tourism, several towns in the Var and Alpes-Maritimes regions have banded together to form La Route des Mimosas, the Mimosa Route, 80 miles of bright yellow horticultural heaven between the medieval village of Bormes-les-Mimosas and the perfume capital of Grasse.

The major mimosa action takes place on February weekends when the towns on the route hold their corsos, parades with drum majorettes, local marching bands, and flower-bedecked floats that are planned and painstakingly assembled by village volunteer groups.

This route through the smaller villages is worth following in the summer as well as it provides respite from the crowds in the well-known beach resorts of the Riviera. Even when the mimosa season is over, the gardens and protected nature refuges along this route are among the most exceptional botanical treasures in France even though one botanist’s treasure can be another botanist’s pest, as you’ll discover in your travels along the Mimosa Route.

Bormes-les-Mimosas

The village of Bormes – after enduring the “place-with-all-the-mimosas” epithet for years – changed its name to include the ubiquitous flowers in 1968. And it makes sense: Of the 1,200 varieties of mimosa plants that exist across the world, the latest local plant census claims that 700 different mimosa varieties reside within town limits.

Moreover, the National Conservancy of Mimosa is centered in the greenhouses at the Pépinière Cavatore which nurtures 7,000-8,000 mimosa plants every year. Horticulturist Julien Cavatore waxes eloquent on his family’s specialized knowledge of the Australian acacia. Mimosas, he explains, flourish in the Mediterranean
coastal region although the fickle plants experience difficulties just a few miles (and micro-climates) north in Aix-en-Provence.

“You can’t buy one of my ‘babies’ unless I think you can care for it properly indoors or replant it in an appropriate garden environment,” Cavatore says. Indoor mimosa seedlings must be coddled like a cranky, anti-social houseguests, sequestered in an otherwise unused, unheated room with frequent watering and careful attention to their specific soil requirements.

Therefore, it’s a whole lot easier to connect with mimosas al fresco. The Australian gardens in Bormes-les-Mimosa’s spectacular, three-quarter acre Parc Gonzalez showcase the golden flowers in addition to other exotic plants such as banksia and eucalyptus. For fans of manmade culture, note that architectural jewels such as the 16th-century chapel dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi (who visited Bormes on his anti-plague tour in 1481) show up in many of the garden settings.

The town’s major non-floral tourist attraction is the Fort de Brégançon, a 15th century military installation designated as a presidential vacation residence since 1968. Rarely used in recent years while running up an annual maintenance bill of 200,000 €, Former President François Hollande opened it to the public in 2013 although his successor seems less likely to relinquish the keys on a permanent basis. President Emmanuel Macron has already installed a swimming pool on the premises and entertained Theresa May at Brégançon for Brexit talks in August 2018. Open to visitors in July and September only. Tickets available through the Bormes-les-Mimosas Tourist Office.

The Domaine du Rayol in Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer

In 1908, Parisian businessman Alfred Courmes purchased 99 acres of wild beachfront terrain and began to build his personal paradise with a mini-farm, a grandiose villa and an antique-style pergola. After several subsequent private owners, the property was destined to be chopped up for building units in 1974 until several local associations protested.

The environmentalists’ ecological dream came true in 1989 when the land was acquired by the Conservatoire du Littoral, the French coastal protection agency. The Domaine du Rayol, 49 acres of Mediterranean herb-and-pine-scented brush called maquis, is the anti-Versailles. No orderly rows of petunias. No geometric parterres. No fountains with Greek gods. The Domaine du Rayol is a “planetary garden” in the words of its landscaper-in-chief Gilles Clément, as well as a “moving garden” in constant evolution.

The first idea on Clément’s drawing board was a patchwork of regional greenery native to Mediterranean-style climates all over the world. Thus, during the December-to-March mimosa season, it’s hard to miss the bright gold Australian reserve. But there’s much else to see as well as other areas are devoted to graceful Asian ginko trees, Californian chaparral and Jurassic Park-style giant ferns from New Zealand. A remarkable 300-year-old cork tree stands as a gnarled reminder that this region once earned its baguettes-and-butter from the production of wine corks.

Nature lovers should plan for a full day to explore the grounds; there’s a charming outdoor café for lunch and snacks. And the plant life isn’t all on dry land either. Visitors can check out the seaweed too because the Domaine offers summertime wading tours along the beachfront as well as snorkeling expeditions. For the latter, all equipment is provided. Reservations are mandatory through the Domaine du Rayol website. While on that site, see if your plans coincide with one of the tree-climbing Sundays or the summer concert schedule.

Sainte Maxime and Saint Raphael

These side-by-side beach resorts have very different architectural profiles: The most lavish holiday villas in Sainte Maxime are stripped-down examples of Art Deco, whereas the shoreline of Saint-Raphael is dominated by the extravagant, wedding-cake fantasies of the Belle Epoque.

Both towns provide a large choice of Provençal boutiques. During winter, many local pastry shops stock mimosa-flavored chocolates produced at the artisanal candy workshop “La Muscadine” in Sainte-Maxime. Like Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, they taste like Riviera sunshine on the tongue. If you miss the mimosa season, console yourself with Muscadine’s chocolate creations flavored with lavender, violet, and rose petals.

Mimosa continues to delight tourists, florists and perfume companies (more later) but every splash of yellow at the Massif de l’Estérel nature reserve in Saint Raphael is regarded with fear and loathing by the Park Service. It turns out that mimosa, like most things in life, has a dark side.

The reserve, a hiker’s dream, dominated by dramatic red cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean, has become an anti-mimosa battleground. Mimosa may be notoriously picky about its climate and soil preferences but, like Goldilocks, when it gets what it wants it takes over. “It’s an invasive foreign plant that crushes the local flora. Cutting, uprooting and burning simply encourages it to spread,” explains Forest Ranger André Frey. Mimosa is Nature’s Nietzsche: what doesn’t kill it, makes it stronger.

The Estérel Reserve, a haven for native Côte d’Azur pines, thyme and sage, offers a variety of walking tours and bike, VTT and even motorcycle treks are available. Information is available through the Saint Raphael Tourist Office.

Tanneron and Mandelieu-La Napoule

In August 1986, fires destroyed 12,480 acres of Riviera forest and the hardest-hit area was the Tanneron Mountain. During mimosa season, that hill is now entirely and breathtakingly golden in winter; the traditional Mediterranean brush is nowhere in sight, which is worrisome to many botanists. Tanneron can therefore be seen is either a glorious symbol of flower power or the scary incubator of yellow peril. It all depends on what side of the botanical barricades you’re on.

Just a few miles away, Mandelieu-La Napoule takes most of its golden color from the Palme d’Or (The Gold Palm) at the nearby Film Festival. A bedroom community of Cannes, Mandelieu is more international than the previous towns on the route and has its own Michelin-starred restaurant, L’Oasis.

Nevertheless, it hosts its own folkloric corso (the 2019 theme was Marco Polo complete with dromedaries) which parades right past the 14th century chateau lovingly restored by American artist Henry Clews Jr (1876 – 1937) and now open to the public. There’s a distinct fairy-tale aura to the castle—the stone inscription over the door reads “Once Upon a Time.”

Grasse

Surrounded by fields of blossoms, Grasse is the fragrance capital where mimosa (and roses and jasmine and violets…) are distilled into tiny bottles of money. Last year, it gained listing to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage register for its floral savoir-faire in the arts of perfumery.

Mimosa is one of principal scent factors in Amarige (Givenchy), Paris (Yves Saint Laurent), Champs-Elysées (Guerlain), L’Eau d’Azur (Occitane), Masumi (François Coty) and Moment Suprême (Jean Patou).

Fragonard, established in Grasse in 1926, simply calls their mimosa scent Mimosa. At present, the Perfume Museum in Grasse offers limited exhibits while under renovation. All the more reason to head to Fragonard, which has its own museum (yes, there’s a relation to the painter) and workshops (reserve ahead) where visitors can get a chance to make their own fragrance.

Planning Your Trip

If beginning the Mimosa Route in Bormes-les-Mimosas, Toulon-Hyères is the closest airport and Toulon and Hyères are the closest TGV stations. If starting in Grasse, Nice is the more convenient choice whether arriving by train or plane.

Information on planning a trip to the areas covered by the Mimosa Road is found on the official tourist sites of the department of Var, the Côte d’Azur and the Mimosa Route, in addition to those of the towns mentioned in this article.

Fancy four-star options are thin on the ground at present but they’re in the works: The Belle Epoque-style Grand Hotel of Bormes-les-Mimosas (ca 1903), is currently under renovation and construction is slated to begin on an all-new luxury hotel on a hillside overlooking the old town of Grasse.

In the meantime, profit from charming (and bargain-priced for the Riviera) options such as the Café du Progrès in Bormes-les-Mimosas whose casual restaurant serves some of the best home-made tapenade on the coast as well as lush plats du jour such as minced lamb pastilla. The cozy inn above the restaurant has a small but refreshing pool.

One pays extra for the waterfront views at the venerable Excelsior Hotel in Saint Raphael, but more dramatic scenery is offered by city-side rooms that overlook the remarkable Roman-Byzantine Notre-Dame de la Victoire Basilica, built in 1883 from the region’s pink sandstone.

The Café de France in Sainte-Maxime has been run by the same family since 1852. Directly across from the town’s small but lively fish market, it’s a great place to sample daurade (sea bream) in butter sauce with a side of black rice topped with white truffles. There’s live jazz on winter weekends.

© 2019, Corinne LaBalme

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Since most of my trip was dedicated to visiting old spa towns and hot springs, I wouldn’t be doing any hiking (despite my luck of a warm, sunny early spring week) or otherwise exploring the domes and craters that so define the landscape. The chain of puys begins at the western edge of Clermont. I wouldn’t be visiting Vulcania, a family-friendly museum and park explaining the existence, extinction and erosion of the volcanoes, the last of which erupted here about 7,000 years ago. Nevertheless, ever since arriving in Clermont-Ferrand and now throughout the day, I had views of the highest of the peaks, the 4806-foot Puy de Dôme, one of the major natural markers of France.

The roads that I drove along on the first hills of the Regional Nature Park of the Volcanoes were of the winding kind that would that make me feel ill as a passenger but that made me feel like a race car driver behind the wheel—at least until third gear. It was a short race. Twenty-five minutes after leaving Royat I was passing Volvic, famous for its bottled water, and the view of its 15th-century fortress castle (Tournoël), and 15 minutes beyond that I was descending into the narrow valley of Chatel-Guyon’s “thermal park,” where the hot springs are found.

Chatel-Guyon lies on the first bump out of the cereal plains of Auvergne, which is why a count named Guy II built his castle (castrum guidonis) there in 1185. Nothing remains of guy’s castle but it’s name, which is that of the town that grew around it.

Like the hiking season and the grazing season that awaited greener pastures, the season for medical thermal cures (April-October) was a week away as I traveled in Auvergne, so Chatel-Guyon was in a sunny slumber while awaiting the arrival, medical prescription in hand, of the first curists.

Today, a weekday, there was no competition for a seat on the patio of the restaurant of the town’s casino (in France, water-oriented resorts such as hot springs/spa towns are authorized to have a casino). I lunched there with Elisabeth Bertrand, director of the Chatel-Guyon tourist office. I faced out to the old thermal treatment center, les Grands Thermes (photo above), which closed in 2004, after nearly a century of use. The area didn’t seem abandoned, though in part it was, so much as waiting to be rediscovered.

Over chicken supreme, vegetables and a red Châteaugay Cotes d’Auvergne wine, an appellation produced nearby, Mrs. Bertrand explained to me of the rise and decline and transformation of the town over the past 150 years. The general outline follows that described in Part II of this series, with the following specifics:

– 1817: the beginning of timid developments of a small hot springs resort;

– 1855: arrival of the train at Riom, four miles away;

– 1858: opening of the first major thermal center below the old town of Chatel-Guyon in the narrow valley where hot water, having vaporized from deep down in the water table of the plain, pushes up to the surface;

– 1878: a doctor and a banker join forces, setting the tone for the marriage of medicine and luxury that puts Chatel-Guyon on the map of places to come for the thermal cure. During this period, the phylloxera insect was destroying vines throughout France; though not directly related, the rise of the economy of hot springs in the region coincides with the decline of revenue from the vineyards.

– 1890-1910: major developments including the construction, reconstruction and expansion of palatial hotels, the casino-theater complex, the central thermal center, and villas.

– 1912: Chatel-Guyon gets its own train station (now disaffected).

– 1919-1939: The good life continues between the wars, including the construction of another thermal bath and treatment center, the post office, and the Grand Hotel. The springs get additional medical certification particularly with new techniques to use the water to treat intestinal disorders;

– 1946-1970: With planes and more cars, increasingly mobile travelers are drawn to other vacation and resort destinations (the Riviera, foreign lands, etc.) while the medical use of hot springs here, as throughout France, becomes increasingly untethered from the notion of luxury, before losing any connection in the 1970s.

– 1970-2009: Taking the waters is no long associated with leisure and wealth but rather with the national health system’s willingness to provide for all or part of the costs of the 3-week cure. Among the clients sent to take the waters here in the 20th century are soldiers who were stationed in the French colonies and protectorates and sought treatment of intestinal disorders. By the 1960s those colonies and protectorates have gained independence from France, yet another element leading to the decline in the number of medical visitors at Chatel-Guyon from 22,000 in the late 1960s to 3500 in recent years.

What’s so special about this water?
The mineral content of the various hot springs throughout the Massif Central varies. Chatel-Guyon’s water is especially rich in magnesium, which makes it helpful in regulating intestinal transit, treat urinary problems, and healing intestinal wounds and inflammation. The presence of silicon leads it to be used for rheumatologic problems. Less important but also on the list of medical treatments for which doctors may prescribe taking the waters at Chatel-Guyon, is the presence of lithium along with the magnesium, which allows the mineral water to be prescribed for relieving stress, cramps and spasms.

To Americans and Brits, going to a designated faucet every morning for three weeks for a goblet of magnesium-heavy water or for a warm bath or other treatments may not sound very modern, or at least not influenced enough by the Japanese and Indian and Californian techniques that we now associate with spas, and some might prefer pills and other therapies, but there you have it, the Chatel-Guyon cure.

The more recent emphasis on the use of these springs for the treatment rheumatologic pain is expected to boost the number of medical visitors, according to Mrs. Bertrand, but the town isn’t betting the bank on its medical future alone. Instead, Chatel-Guyon’s growth, for this is not a town in decline but in growth, has (and presumably will) come from several other fronts.

– First, though Chatel-Guyon no longer has a direct train to Clermont-Ferrand (a train goes there from nearby Riom), this has become a bedroom community for those working in and around the regional capital. From 3500 residents in the 1970s, when most jobs were related to tourism and the hot springs, the town now as 6500 residents, even though it’s clear from the number and type of shops in town that many of those residents are spending their shopping money elsewhere. Still the numbers are enough to keep the schools and many services active.

– Second, as in all of these towns that developed thanks to their hot springs, there have been recent efforts to promote Chatel-Guyon as destination for that catch-all state of mind called “well-being” via contemporary spas. The 19th-century baths and treatment centers were always spas with a medical imprimatur, so the development of 21st-century spas emphasizing well-being rather than medicine makes good sense. For now the development of spas here and in the other hot spring towns that I visited on this trip are modest enough in size and investment that they’re largely for a local or sub-regional clientele, despite the occasional presence of a more distant visitor looking to enjoy two or three hours of soothing R&R. As far as the spas go, these aren’t international destinations, but as places to visit because of their history and architecture and natural landscape I find them fascinating for explorations off the beaten track.

– Third, more general tourism, particularly in summer, relative to their overall offering (hot springs, sports, nearby hiking, festivals).

Chatel-Guyon’s architectural heritage

A major sign of local efforts to project the town’s heritage into the future is the current renovation of the 400-seat Casino Theater through public funding and private donations. The theater, once one of the jewels of the Chateau-Guyon, was first completed in 1900 and then expanded in 1910. It’s due to reopen in 2014. Owned by the town, it is expected to earn itself a place on the festival circuit map in the region.

In discussing all this with Mrs. Bertrand, I remarked how different the role of government is in a town like this compared with a similar-sized town (or, likely, any town) in the United States. “For us,” she said, “inteventionism,” meaning the role of the government in the economic life of the town, “isn’t simply the government giving something away.” She spoke of it more in terms of making consensus decisions. “[Interventionism] has a relationship with our roots.” Americans would invariably see this as socialsm. Yet, as noted in Part II of this report, many old spa town lean right at the voting booth, though there’s no fast rule.

All of the spa towns that I visited on this trip were trying to answer the question as to what to do with their architectural heritage now that economic and cultural winds have blown away the original clients of that architecture. Chatel-Guyon, for instance, once had 70 hotels, including a number of luxury establishment. Currently, only 14 of those buildings operate as hotels, with the highest currently rated with three (out of five) stars (e.g. Splendid, Bellevue, Omental Thermalia).

Early in the 20th century, 28 springs were being exploited at Chatel-Guyon; in 1970, fourteen; now just five. You can see some of them, disaffected or closed off from the public, as you walk along the grounds of the thermal park. The luxury hotels of yesterday have been transformed into apartment buildings, their grand entrances, lobbies and ballrooms a bit forlorn without any doorman outside or fancily coiffed women walking with umbrellas on a sunny day. But I wouldn’t want this to sound like a sad portrait for this is indeed a healthy, living town. The valley of the hot springs and surrounding hotels/apartment buildings and villas makes for a pretty stroll.

The new thermal baths and treatment center of the 1980s, up the park from the casino, isn’t very attractive from the outside, but the old thermal center, the Grands Thermes, that I faced while having lunch is a treat for the historic-minded eye. Built 1904-1908, around the same time as other elements of the “thermal park,” as this part of the valley is called, the Grands Termes closed in 2004 and was purchased by the town five years later for a symbolic euro. There is as yet no consensus (i.e. viable project) as to what to do with it. However, its situation beside the casino and theater and its interior lobby are certainly promising.

The architectural heritage of these hot spring towns is part of what makes them so appealing to me. In the view above, taken from the entrance to the men’s wing of the Grands Thermes, you see the arched coffered ceiling, the red marble columns, the central table where those taking the cure would sit to write letters or to read the day’s paper, and the horseshoe staircase leading to the women’s wings. There are handsome details in the mosaic work throughout.

Unfortunately, the Grands Thermes can only be visited on Sundays from 4 to 7pm during the April-October “thermal cure” season. Once the theater has reopened in 2014 some bright and viable (or at least not too heavily subsidized) proposals will likely reach the mayor’s desk. The central space is simply too attractive to keep closed.

Coming up with a new use for the dozens of treatment rooms will be more difficult. Here’s a view of one of the treatment rooms with its ancient installations, in use until 2004.

A sunny walk-about in Chatel-Guyon eventually leads up the hill past several villas from the early 1900s, such at the villa “Les Jeannettes” (1908)…

… and to the site where Guy’s “chatel” once stood. There’s a milky late-afternoon light as I look out over the valley of the hot springs and beyond to the entrance to the volcanic park.

But I left Chatel-Guyon headed in the opposite direction, out into the plain, where Guy would watch for trouble and where I would spend an trouble-free night at the 5-star Chateau La Canière.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Other articles in this “Five Days in Auvergne” series:
Part I: From Paris to Clermont-Ferrand
Part II: An Introduction to Spa Towns and Hot Springs By Way of Royat
Part IV: Chateau La Canière, a luxury hotel
Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu.

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Pointe du Layet is right next to Cap Nègre, famous as Carla Bruni’s family residence and hence that of her husband the president. Carla and Nicolas prefer Cap Nègre to Fort de Brégançon, an official presidential vacation residence that’s only a few kilometers away.

Shot from below, this is a eucalyptus, which gives off subtle fragrances in the heat of the sunny in the south.

Dans le cadre des études France Revisited sur le rapport entre les arbres et les lieux, voici trois images prises par Stanislas Illya Yankovich sur la côte méditerranéenne entre Toulon et St Tropez à la Pointe du Layet. Mais attention aux visiteurs pudiques: l’endroit est déclaré naturiste

La Pointe du Layet se trouve juste à côté du Cap Nègre, célèbre par la résidence familiale de Carla qui y accueille son président de mari, qu’ensemble ils préfèrent à l’officiel Fort de Brégançon qui n’est distant que de quelques kilomètres.

Pris par en dessous, c’est un eucalyptus (à gauche) qui, dans la chaleur du soleil du Midi, dégage de subtiles effluves.

And these two are “tortured” pines by the sea.
Et les deux autres sont des pins “torturés” par la mer.

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* * *

The weather has been gloomy in Paris this summer, the sun unpredictable. No sooner are you ready to go out when the sky changes.
Le temps est bien maussade à Paris cet été, le soleil imprévisible. Le temps de se mettre en route et le ciel change.

Still, the desire to be outside and the need for nature are irrepressible. Returning to Parc de Sceaux, I continue my photographic experiments: alone against a tree,
Pourtant l’envie du dehors, le besoin de nature est irrépressible. De retour au Parc de Sceaux, je continue mes expériences : seul contre un arbre,

toes fanning out (a French expression meaning total inactivity),
les doigts de pied en éventail (une expression française qui dit la totale inactivité),

involving a couple of kind tourists with their feet in the water,
impliquant un couple de gentils touristes les pieds dans l’eau,

or playing between shadows and light.
ou jouant entre ombres et lumières.

And this is Paris’s emptiest week of the year: I’ll be here to take advantage of it!
Et c’est ce week end que Paris sera le plus vide de l’année : je serai là pour en profiter!

Photos and text: Va-nu-pieds

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Driving south from my home in Aix-en-Provence into the Camargue, the change in landscape is surprisingly fast as the giant plane trees and windswept pines of Provence are replaced by the flat marshlands and fine sandy beaches of the Rhone River Delta.

Not only does the landscape change but so does the culture. Exit Provence’s lavender charms, enter its cowboy country. This is Texas à la française, 300 square miles of sparsely populated marshland home to local cowboys known as gardians and ranchers called manadiers, along with otters, muskrats, flamingos, horses, and bulls.

The Camargue is also temporary home to several hundred species of migratory birds. It’s a dreamscape for ornithologist though you don’t need to be a hardcore birdwatcher to enjoy a day out in two parks:Marais du Vigueirat and the Parc Ornithologique. Clearly marked nature trails, wooden boardwalks and observatories allow visitors to the park to wander at their own pace. Spring and late autumn are the best times to see the egrets, herons, storks and other migratory birds. July and August have visual appeal as well, but with it comes stifling heat, blood-thirsty mosquitoes, and an influx of visitors.

Local tour operators offer rides through the wetlands in 4-wheel drive vehicles, however the best way to enjoy the landscape and the wildlife is on horseback.

The Camargue horse

The local Camargue horse is a unique breed. The horses are only about 13 or 14 hands, which is closer to the size of a pony. These sturdy rugged-legged horses are born dark brown or black and progressively lighten after the age of three, eventually turning grey then white.

The breed is hearty enough to cope with tortuous heat in the summer and blustery cold days in winter. In fact, they are never stabled. They are always in the fields unless they are ready to be saddled up for a ride.

They are extremely agile and very much at ease with water. As a rider, I find that one of the most exciting parts about riding in the Camargue is cantering along the beach or splashing in and out of ponds, something that is not only permitted but encouraged.

Finding a stable

Stables are easy enough to find since they dot D570, the main road running south from Arles towards Saintes Maries de la Mer, but the trick is to find a good one. At some facilities, I’ve had the impression that the horses aren’t receiving the best of care. A complete list of stables is available on the Saintes Maries de la Mer website, www.saintesmaries.com.

It’s important to look for the French Equestrian Federation logo (FFE- Fédération Française d’Equitation) when selecting a place to ride. After trying a number of stables I’ve found my favorite in Les Cabanes de Cacharel, an accredited facility that’s owned by a young couple from the region who clearly adore their animals.

The property has two cabanes de gardians. That’s the name of the traditional homes in the Camargue built using local reeds and clay. Built for cowboys, fisherman and shepherds alike, such homes are positioned with their back to the mistral wind, which can blow any month of the year at speeds that often exceed 80 or 90 km/hour (or 50 – 55 mph). During winter months the wind can be bitterly cold. (I may have gotten accustomed to Provencal temperatures over the year but as a Canadian I still recognize bitter cold when I feel it.)

Saddling up

Depending on your level of experience, the owner or staff at the better stables will select the animal that will be the best tempered for your needs and experience as a rider. There’s also a size issue: because Camargue horses are a small breed, visitors weighing over 90 kilos or 198 lbs are discouraged from riding.

Camargue-style stirrups resemble those worn by the conquistadors. Whereas some completely close in the toe, others are made of ornate wrought iron. Camargue saddles resemble Western-style saddles, so English-style riders will find them slightly uncomfortable. It took me some getting used to flopping around on the saddle, but I now appreciate this looser way of riding and now find it a far more enjoyable, especially in this region. Rather than focusing on heels down, tips in, back straight, reigns tight, the Camargue saddle puts you in a better position and frame of mind to take in the scenery.

One of the pleasures of returning to the Camargue frequently is the ways in which the landscape and the wildlife are different each time I go. I’ve ridden on days where the fog was so thick it was hard to guess the location of the guide, but the horses knew where to go. It feels magical to ride in near obscurity while listening to the calls of birds.

I’ve also ridden on the crispest sunny day where I could see miles of sea lavender and tamarisk surrounding the lagoons. And I’ve been on walks when the wind was so fierce that the birds couldn’t hear us approaching. We literally crept up on flocks of flamingos with their marvellous pink plumage. When they finally spotted us they took off only to land but a short distance away. Flamingos are often chosen as the poster bird to represent the Camargue, so I was surprised the first time I came across storks sitting in giant nests atop the few tall trees in the region.

But whenever I come the most enjoyable part is riding on an otherwise empty beach and wading into the water. There’s a sense of freedom then that I’ve come to associate with the Camargue.

Useful links and Information

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, the main town in the Camargue, www.saintesmaries.com
Arles, the gateway to the Camargue, Arles Tourist Office
Camargue Regional Park, www.parc-camargue.fr
Les Marais du Vigueirat, protected marshland and natural reserves, www.marais-vigueirat.reserves-naturelles.org
Parc Ornithologique, a zoological park and ornithological reserve, www.parcornithologique.com
Les Cabanes de Cacharel, www.cabanesdecacharel.com

Food note

The gardians can be seen rounding up the bulls (tauraux) that are raised for the Courses Camarguaises, a local version of bullfighting in which white-clad raseteurs try to grab a cockade ribbon from the horns of bulls.

The bulls are also raised for their meat. Local restaurants offer daube de tauraux (bull stew) in which the long-cooked meat becomes incredibly tender just like a boeuf bourgignon. Saussison de tauraux (dry bull sausage) is another local specialty.

The marshland of the Camargue is also France’s major rice-growing region.

Laurence Bry is a Canadian living in Aix-en-Provence. She operates Provence Confidential, a concierge service assiting travelers visiting Provence.

The post The Green Traveler: The Camargue, a View from the Saddle appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

This is a small garden in the heart of the Latin Quarter, between the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages and the Sorbonne. And its Siberian elm. Snow is rare in Paris. Many years there is no snow, and when there is it generally doesn’t stick… And this year, for the third day, the snow is still there.

Today, written on the windshield of a car : “Vive la vie!” Puts a smile on the face for the rest of the day.

Aujourd’hui, tracé sur le pare brise blanc d’une voiture : “Vive la vie!” De quoi sourire pour le reste de la journée.

But the snow doesn’t last long in Paris. The memory, however, remains because Va-nu-pieds was there.

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Schoolyards throughout France are often planted with a checkerboard of lindens. Village squares frequently have well-trimmed lindens. So do palaces parks as part of their French formality. Lindens of various species grow in the wild, with major forests of them in Provence and Roussillon.

In Paris, the Garden of the Palais Royal and Place des Vosges are two prime examples of parks with orderly rows of linden trees. The photo below is from an alley of lindens at the Palais Royal. These are silver lindens.

When visiting the Landing Zone in Normandy, you can see some tremendous old lindens in the town of Bayeux in the square called Place Charles de Gaulle. The square took on the name of the general because it was there that, eight days after D-Day 1944, he made his first speech on French soil since fleeing to England in 1940, but the one hundred lindens bordering the square are much older, dating from 1840.

The branches of the linden of the linden are sharply pruned in February, and they begin to bud in March, but it’s as their leaves unfold with the arrival of spring that the romance begins. April is typically a rainy month. You might walk around for two or three days with your collar up and your head down, but then the rain will stop and you’ll look up and find the linden’s young, pale green, heart-shape leaves decorating the branches. Like love, one half may be longer or wider than the other, and the edges are more or less serrated.

By May lindens cast full shadow, then in June yellow-white flowers blossom, releasing a sweet fragrance, from mild sweet to sickly sweet. That’s the smell of linden tea, one of most familiar herbal teas in France. Linden-mint is another. There is also linden flower honey.

The shade of summer gives way, in September or early October, to the brief yellow-brown flush of coloring of autumn in northern France before the leaves fall.

– Text and images: GLK

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It’s just a small detail, a spiny husk fallen from the tree, for example, but when you bend down for a closer look you realize that you never knew the tree in your street bore fruit.

You pick it up—or rather I did—and discover that for the past ten years you—or rather I—haven’t been living on a street bordered by linden trees but by something else. Linden trees don’t bear fruit like this, and certainly not in late summer, and certainly not with a spiny husk that contains what turns out to be some kind of nut.

Ten years! How could I not have noticed? I thought something was strange when I stood on my balcony this afternoon and watched the Asian family who occasionally, at about 5:30, just before the garbage truck arrives, go through the garbage cans along the sidewalk. They weren’t going through the garbage today but rather were gathering something beneath the trees. I had quickly forgotten (I took this photo a few days later), however something must have stuck. Later this afternoon, returning home from buying bread at the bakery, I noticed husks on the ground. There were lots of them, beneath all the trees.

How could I have missed them? And for ten years!

One moment you’re walking beneath your lindens—yes, your lindens—on your way to buy bread, and five minutes later, demi baguette in hand, you discover that you live on a street not with lindens but with some kind of nut-bearing trees.

Your life then feels like a fraud. Mine did, at least the part that is supposedly aware of its surroundings, the part that feels at home on a street with linden trees. Lindens are frequent in Paris, including most famously in Place des Vosges and the garden of Palais Royal.

But those aren’t lindens after all. The leaves, I saw upon looking up, though heart-shaped like a linden’s, were serrated, like a scary version of linden leaves. And those spiny husks (photo left) look like something from a horror movie! How could I never have noticed them before?

Earlier in the summer I was doing research on the internet—that free-floating kind of research that I associated with the World Book encyclopedia when I was a kid, during which you forget what you were looking for but find along the way lots of details wish you could hold onto—and came across a man I have come to know as Monsieur Nature.

Mr. Nature knows all about the birds and the bees and the crops and the trees. I wrote to him and eventually enlisted him to lead me on some naturalist wanderings on the edge of the Paris region, particularly in a zone known as the Vexin Français, a regional natural park of villages and farmland north of the Seine on the edge of the Paris region, just before entering Normandy.

In my disturbed state at discovering nuts falling from what I had previously thought to be lindens, I took a close-up photo of a prickly husks, a nut and a leaf and an image of a full tree and sent them to Mr. Nature asking him to help me identify it.

“Salut Gary!,” he responded. “You’re to be excused as an urbanite! Other than the flowering of the catkins that comes at a different season from that of lindens (and that should have set you on a different path héhé…)…”

I’ve translated the above line since his message was in French. For catkins he’d written chatons, which I had to look up in my French-English dictionary. After that I had to look up catkins in my Webster’s. It means “a spicate inflorescence,” which was no help at all.

Mr. Nature went on to tell me that my linden was in fact a noisetier de Byzance, corylus colurna, known in English as a Turkish filbert. He tried to reassure me that my ignorance was excusable by telling me that the leaves of the noisetier de Byzance resemble the linden’s and that both trees often have a pyramidal shape. He added that the Turkish filbert tolerates drought and chalky, alkaline soils, as well as pollution and wind, which made them good city plants. And he informed me that the nuts are edible, which explains the family harvesting them the other day. They are, in fact, hazelnuts.

Mr. Nature sent me to the following website: www.lesarbres.fr/fiche-byzance.php
Here’s one in English: plantfacts.osu.edu/descriptions/0246-332.html

Various websites, I’ve since found, note how the Turkish filbert “resembles a linden from a distance.” (Compare the linden to the right with the filbert at the top of this blog.) But I’ve been walking walk by the trees on my street every day, 2, 4, 6 times a day! And for ten years now!

Not knowing doesn’t bother me so much as not noticing. I had never noticed how serrated the leaves are. I had never even registered that spiky husks fall in late August or early September, let alone that there are hazelnuts inside.

From my window I thought for ten years that I’ve been watching linden leaves bud in April, that I’ve been watching linden leaves’ pale green turn a deep green, that I’ve been watching linden leaves blown by the wind, that I’ve been watching linden leaves turn yellow then brown and then fall. But I haven’t been watching that all, I’ve been watching filbert leaves!

Linden flowers put off a more or less powerful scent when in tiny bloom in early summer and the fact that I had always reasoned that I didn’t smell the scent on my street because mine were of the lesser scented citified kind. It would have been much simpler to reason that they didn’t smell like lindens in early summer because they weren’t lindens at all, but that had never crossed my mind.

Several times now I’ve gone out to the Vexin Français and other greenery with Mr. Nature and have been trying to remember the names of trees, particularly that in French birch is bouleau and beech is hêtre. But it won’t stick. It isn’t a vocabulary problem it’s a natural problem. Botanical names just don’t stay with me.

I’ve repeated those names a dozen times—birch=bouleau, beech= hêtre… birch=bouleau, beech= hêtre… etc. I’ve stared at a single birch for a full three minutes thinking of nothing but bouleau. But still, show me a birch and I’m likely not even to remember that it is a birch, let alone un bouleau.

I know where the ambulatory/déambulatoire is in Notre-Dame, I remember that Henri IV was assassinated in 1610, and I’m pretty good at distinguishing a Pissarro from a Sisley, things that interest me only when I’m in a particularly cultured mood but that truly don’t matter to me.

But I am very attached to trees. In an uninformed way I’m drawn to them. I’m fascinated by the ways in which they, too, live and change and suffer and survive and adapt and blossom and stay serene. I recognize that one of the wonderful things about Paris compared with, say, New York or Rome, is that wherever you go you’ll see a variety of trees: plane trees and horse chestnuts and lindens and, I now know, Turkish filberts—hazelnuts, if you like.

But I’m unlikely to remember their names. They just won’t stick in my non-botanical brain. Still, some kind of awareness remains, some kind of discovery, for having digested the disturbing fact that I no longer live on a street with lindens, I feel, as summer ends, a sense of renewal, as though I’ve moved to a new neighborhood, a new street, where hazelnuts grow, and where filbert leaves will soon be falling.

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The first mile or so of the path progresses with fits and starts as you wind your way outside of the city and into the immediate suburbs of Malakoff then Châtillon. Little by little the path then settles into an easy-going, occasionally rolling, unhurried green (verte) flow (coulée) passing through the relatively tranquil towns of Bagneux, Fontenay-aux-Roses, Sceaux, Châtenay-Malabry, Antony, Verrières-le-Buisson, and into Massy.

Two-thirds along the way is the most well-known greenery to the immediately south of Paris, Parc des Sceaux, a delicious spot for an afternoon loll-about after a genteel ride out and before a satisfied ride home.

Yesterday, I pedaled the path in the company of Va-nu-pieds. Va-nu-pieds is the pseudonym—the lens name, if you will—of a French photographer whose work on France Revisited can be found here. A va-nu-pieds, literally “goes barefoot,” is a vagabond, a tramp, a ragamuffin.

Before going barefoot in the park, however, we spotted from the Coulée Verte the Château de Sceaux.

One glimpse of it and you’re sure to want to approach for a closer view.

Entrance is free. You can walk your bikes through the park, but Va-nu-pieds would have none of that, so we attached them outside and spend a few hours wandering around.

The chateau was mostly constructed under the ownership of Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), Louis XIV’s Minister of Finance. It’s a photogenic place in a post-card kind of way, but the main attraction of Sceaux is the park, created by the grandfather of French landscape gardeners André Le Nôtre (1613-1700). Le Nôtre’s work at Versailles was already well underway by the time Colbert purchased Sceaux.  Hired by Colbert then by Colbert’s son the Marquis de Seignelay, Le Nôtre designed what remains one of the pleasing and accessible noble parks of the Paris region.

As with other noble parks in the region it had its 19th-century era of ruin but has since been lovingly restored

Its trademark features are its cascade,

which includes these spouts,

its Grand Canal,

and its perfectly aligned rows of populars, plane trees, horse chestnuts, lindens, and other trees whose names I never remember.

The sculptures are less noteworthy, but I like the image above right.

It’s simply a delightful place for a stroll, a picnic, a lounge on the grass (actually allowed here!), photographic explorations, a jog, prolonged conversations, a nap, romance, and, as far as I’m concerned, a illicit pee in the woods. There are snack stands and cafés in the park.

Other than biking along the Coulée Verte, Parc de Sceaux is easily reachable from the center of Paris by suburban train. Take RER line B, direction Massy-Palaiseau, directly to the Parc de Sceaux stop, a 21-minute ride from Chatelet-Les Halles. The park is then a 3-minute walk from the station.

(c) Gary Lee Kraut

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Here are several examples from a recent trip to Provence using the vantage point of olive trees.

The first one is from Avignon.

The second is also from Avignon. The stone tower seen in the lower portion of the image is the upper portion of one of the towers that punctuate the walls surrounding the old town.

This third is from Nimes. My shirt was getting caught in the branches as I bent down to take the shot, which caused the leaves to blur and allowed me to capture something of the mood of the park toward sunset that evening. The stones glimpsed here are those of a Roman tower.

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