A few weeks in Provence
No stay in Provence would be complete without some landscape and village photography, especially if your wife is with you doing watercolor painting! So, taking a break from old stones (although there will be some of those...), here are a few of those shots I took in October 2024.
Ménerbes
Listed among the Plus beaux villages de France (“Most Beautiful Villages of France”), Ménerbes sits on a hilltop in the Luberon area, overlooking the plain where River Caladon runs. It is a very fashionable vacation locale for well-to-do Parisians, especially of the intellectual and rather liberal persuasion. It was already that when I was a teenager.
Compared to the Saint-Tropez and Ramatuelle area, which caters to the beach-going, bling-bling, show-off, new money millionaires, the Luberon purports to show restraint, intellectual superiority, affected understatement and supposed good taste, although the haughty aloofness practiced here against those who do not belong always seemed very much the same to me. Of course, the success of Peter Mayle’s books (himself very much part of that crowd I just described) did nothing to help.
In the higher part of the village, the chapel of the White Penitents has been restored. Some old houses have fallen into ruin and will most likely never be put right. The works would be too expensive, and this place can only be reached by foot (and the climb is steep!), so it is very inconvenient for deliveries and daily life.
A few weeks in Provence
No stay in Provence would be complete without some landscape and village photography, especially if your wife is with you doing watercolor painting! So, taking a break from old stones (although there will be some of those...), here are a few of those shots I took in October 2024.
Ménerbes
Listed among the Plus beaux villages de France (“Most Beautiful Villages of France”), Ménerbes sits on a hilltop in the Luberon area, overlooking the plain where River Caladon runs. It is a very fashionable vacation locale for well-to-do Parisians, especially of the intellectual and rather liberal persuasion. It was already that when I was a teenager.
Compared to the Saint-Tropez and Ramatuelle area, which caters to the beach-going, bling-bling, show-off, new money millionaires, the Luberon purports to show restraint, intellectual superiority, affected understatement and supposed good taste, although the haughty aloofness practiced here against those who do not belong always seemed very much the same to me. Of course, the success of Peter Mayle’s books (himself very much part of that crowd I just described) did nothing to help.
In the higher part of the village, the chapel of the White Penitents has been restored. Some old houses have fallen into ruin and will most likely never be put right. The works would be too expensive, and this place can only be reached by foot (and the climb is steep!), so it is very inconvenient for deliveries and daily life.