The car ride, for starters, was a welcome change. We turned the air conditioning up, had some water from the trunk, still cold from the night before. We avoided the highway for what was, according to the guide book, the bucolic route to Les Baux de Provence, a medieval town between St. Remy and Arles.
The guidebook did us right. From the road we took, we got this incredible view of Les Baux -- camouflaged in the rock, almost invisible if it weren't for its red standard with the Star of Bethlehem at the center.
It was a fitting introduction to one of the most beautiful villages in France.
Les Baux (from Baou, a Provençal word meaning high rock) is strategically perched on top of a hill overlooking the length and breadth of Provence - From Arles, the Camargue, the Alpilles, and up to Marseille and the azure Mediterranean in the south.
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| The Alpilles forming a basin around the valley. |
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| Olive trees, and beyond, Marseille. |
Artisan stores and snack shops line the main avenue going up to the citadel, the site of the old fortress. A shop owner told us to bring water when we go up, because at the top the temperature is five degrees more. (The bottle of water we had with us didn't last 30 minutes once we got there.)
He added that he grew up in the village, and knew the place back when there were no faceless tour conglomerates making money out of its history without giving back to the community. He knew the place before safety rails were put around the risky areas, in fact he even showed us the scar he got from taking his bike to the castle ruins when he was a restless petit garçon.
They asked the women to volunteer to fire the trebuchet, and H was trying to make me go...
But, dear Lord, it was too hot. It was dry and I felt like I was going to spontaneously combust.
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| How did we end up in the desert? |
Displaying the courage and resilience of my sex, I trudged on with H until the southern tip - and was rewarded with God's view of Provence.
Moving to the north, we passed by a soda machine plugged into a cave. Oddest thing to see, but thank heavens someone thought of it. It recharged us enough to make it up the lookout tower, a place so steep that a sign saying "climb at your own risk" was deemed necessary. It was where criminals were thrown off, too.
A pair of American women had a difficult time going up the narrow, timeworn steps. One had heels on while the other kept slipping in her slippers. But we all made it, finally, to the rocky apex of the old fortress.
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| First level. Hitched my sleeves and leggings up because by then it was a matter of survival. |
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| Here I am at the top level, the hottest spot in Les Baux, with my beloved bottle of soda. And H, of course. |
Where there are now crumbling walls, an extravagant castle used to scale the heavens. Still, the ruins stand proud, even in their naked state.
Les Baux was greatly esteemed for its ornate castle, and was the seat of power of the lords of Baux, who descended from King Balthazar - or so the legend goes. This is why the Star of Bethlehem figures prominently in their coat of arms. Indeed, it is very old. We saw an abandoned Roman house on the way in.
But it is much older than that. Perhaps human settlement began in 6000 BC as archaeological evidence suggests, or perhaps further back than one could imagine.
At the ruins, Les Baux's prehistoric origins could clearly be traced. Forming the base of the village built into the rock were troglodyte caves -
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| Trying to get a break from the sun. It was actually cold in the shade. |
That were constantly given a make-over to accommodate more modern standards of living. Where once there were just bare limestone walls, holes were carved to make shelves; then chimneys rose through the ceiling to bake bread, planks were attached to make towers and churches and then later more elaborate structures. One civilization after the next latched on to the rock like wild flowers, then thrived.
However, these medieval marvels have bit the dust. Even with the citadel's excellent defensive position, the mighty Protestant house of Baux was demolished in 1632 under the command of the Catholic king, Louis XIII. Today, the man made walls wage a battle with erosion, while the caves stand unflinching, as they have for thousands of years.
In the 15th century, the last of the Baux died, bringing an end to the line of the Persian King Balthazar (again, if the story is to be believed), which might have been just as well. Enough blood had been spilled in the fields of Provence to expand and defend the territory of the feudal Baux lords -- but in the end the same fate befell them as Shelley's Ozymandias whose empire - though once invincible - eventually succumbed to the elements.
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| Ancient olive trees still rocking it. |
Coming down from the old lookout tower, an intriguing name was written on a plaque: Val d'Enfer. A jagged landscape so named because it is said to conjure visions of inconsolable despair and suffering. Thus, "the Valley of Hell."
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| Faced with visions of "death and suffering" I do like Pinoys do - I smile! |
According to legend, it was because the hill looked so dismally grim that one can imagine goblins and ghosts coming at you from behind the limestone that it was so unfortunately named. It did not look so evil when I arrived, but while I stared at it three hours later in the infernal heat of summer, I felt the anguish and utter wretchedness of the Valley of Hell.
Luckily, we found a stall that sold granitas so I got my good spirits back by the time we got back on the road. (Babaw?) This time, we stayed in Marseille with the parents of H's friend who were on the French version of the Amazing Race.
Meet Luc and Clemence, the amazing retirees of Pekin Express. She fed us like we were starving, and he made us drink wine like we were alcoholics. God bless 'em! Clemence wanted to visit the Philippines because her sister went to Coron just when she and Luc were in the process of waiting for the show to start filming, so she missed the chance. She wore her Palawan t-shirt to show me.
The next afternoon I slept for a few hours after lunch while H and his friend hurled kids around the pool (not as dangerous as I thought). A few minutes before five pm, we were ready to go back to Gigouzac after a quick drive around Marseille.
Well, we didn't get that quick drive around Marseille. Remember when I told you in the beginning of this series that H's mom was so nervous about letting H drive her car? Those words echoed in my head as we entered the highway and the gears of the car got stuck on first. Suddenly we were crawling at 20 k/ph as the world around us sped up to a hundred.
The sign posts all said we were in Marseille, but in truth, we had entered the valley of hell.
Up Next: All hell breaks loose at a Peugeot dealership.
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A Year in France Celebration (The Aftermath)
Sizzling Beach 1, Sizzling Beach 2, Sizzling Beach 3
Bella Italia 1, Bella Italia 2, Bella Italia 3, Bella Italia 4, Bella Italia 5
Provencal Lass 1, Provencal Lass 2
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