Southern France in June
The Chapoutier vineyards, which I could see out of some of my classroom windows at Lycée Gabriel Faure, in Tournon-sur-Rhône.
This trip to France started out with a quick visit with my friend Celine in Paris, then it was straight down south to Tournon-sur-Rhône, where I went to high school for a year as an exchange student. I visited my friends Bénédicte, Sandrine and my host family the Monalons. I got to see how much Béné and Sandrine’s children have grown and visit some of my favorite places with Gérard and Maryse Montalon.
Southern France is by far the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived. The hills of vineyards, the fields of lavender, the groves of olive trees, it is all just so beautiful. I lived with the Montalon family in the hamlet of Villeneuve-de-Vals, which is outside the village of St. Barthélémy-de-Vals. The closest town big enough to have a high school is Tournon-sur-Rhône. Anytime of year, the countryside around Villeneuve is beautiful, but in June it is spectacularly gorgeous.
Gérard and Maryse took me to one of my favorite places, Pont-en-Royans. The village is built on cliffs above the La Bourne River, perched above one of the prettiest rivers coming out of the Vercors mountains. We visited the water museum and my favorite gardens, stopping to take photos of the aqueduct at St. Nazaire-en-Royans. Some places are just so lovely, I will go back and take more photos whenever I can. It’s like Machu Picchu. No matter how many times I’m there, I’ll still take more photos. It’s just too beautiful not to.
After several days visiting friends near where I lived in 1999, I took the train south to Montpellier, where one of my high school friends, Agathe, moved recently. She has visited me when I lived in both Istanbul and Boise and is definitely one of my most adventurous friends. She once hitchhiked from Canada to Ushuaia, which took her about a year. Most of my hitchhiking around France has been with her. Agathe is now a librarian, but no less adventurous than she used to be.
I had timed this trip to Montpellier to coincide with La Fête de la Musique, which is by far my favorite holiday in France. It’s always on Summer Solstice, June 21, and takes advantage of the long day and short night. Every city and most towns set up stages in every plaza and have musical groups scheduled back to back from around noon to well after midnight. My first Fête de la Musique, in June 2000, was with my friend Céline in Annecy. We tried to visit every stage in town that day and were still up when the bakeries opened with fresh croissants at 5am. I had never seen such a variety of musicians and the experience left me with a deep love for live music.
La Fête de la Musique this year in Montpellier was just as amazing. We saw everything from full orchestras to death metal to jazz to gospel. There were stages set up in every possible space, with more groups playing on street corners. The city published an entire newspaper to cover the schedule for each of the venues. As with Fête de la Musique all around France, every concert is free and open to the public.
Montpellier tried something new this year, which was turning one of the street cars into a venue. It was listed just like every other venue on the schedule, with bands playing back to back all night. It had a special route, which went around town in a circle, rather than the usual routes that went into the city and out to nearby suburbs and towns. I saw a musician that had a Jack Johnson feel to his music, a French gospel group singing in classics in English and a drumming group from Senegal. The night was warm, everybody was out in the streets and the variety of musical styles was exactly what I love most about La Fête de la Musique.
The next day we slept in, then sat around most of the afternoon drinking coffee, enjoying the shade in Agathe’s backyard and eating fresh figs and other seasonal fruit from the local market. Afterwards, I had to take the train back north, but I still had a few days to spend with friends near Tournon before I had to go back to Paris. I spent a few more days visiting friends, playing with their children and enjoying all of the incredible food that you can get in the summer in southern France. I got to spend one whole day with my friend Sandrine, on a road trip around the region, counting lavender fields. We visited picturesque little towns, stopping for lunch, then afternoon coffee, getting out of the car a few times to cool off in streams that we passed by. I taught her oldest child, Maxime, to skip rocks and try to catch minnows. By the end of the day, we had managed to count 99 fields of lavender, but just could not find a 100th field. Back home in the evening, while the kids played on the swingset, we decided that their few lavender plants next to the trampoline would have to stand in for the 100th field.
As if La Fête de la Musique wasn’t enough street art, one evening staying with my friend Bénédicte, we went to watch a theater troupe perform in a nearby town. The performed an incredible variety or scenes, each one ending with some reason to get up and go, inviting the audience to go along with them. They put on six unique plays, each one completely different from the others, and most of them interactive. I had never seen anything like it. At the end, we went home for dinner, but went back after dark to see the same troupe put on a musical, also outside. It is incredible what artists can do when they have community support and just as incredible how performing that art outside can bring a community together. All of these performances were free for the public, sponsored by the town council.
Eventually, I had to bid my friends a very fond farewell and take the train back north to Paris. I had just two days in Paris before my flight back to the US. I stayed at my favorite hotel, which my friend Alison had introduced me to in 2012, when we went to Paris for her 40th birthday.
The Crystal Hotel, in Saint Germain, is very close to Café de Flore, also a favorite spot of mine. I walked up and down the Seine, visiting a park I had gone to with my parents in 2005 and walking through the Tuileries, where I had spent an afternoon with Alison in 2012. I didn’t go to any museums but just enjoyed walking around a city that has begun to feel familiar, as each trip there builds on the previous ones.
