Provence, FRANCE
La Vallée des Baux
Blindfold me, I would still find my way. Let’s just say that I know my way around. And no one should go around without eyes wide open in this particular stretch of Provence. La Vallée des Baux et la plaine de la Crau form together an unique geology and botany wonder what is it like?... Shrubby.
Blindfold me, I would still find my way. Let’s just say that I know my way around. And no one should go around without eyes wide open in this particular stretch of Provence.
La Vallée des Baux et la plaine de la Crau form together an unique geology and botany wonder shat is it like?... Shrubby.
Wild thyme, rosemary, mint and fennel and a whole catalog of unfussy plants, pine trees and olive trees. It is a small mountain range of limestone and clay hills bordering a swampy valley, the bed of a tumultuous Rhone river four million years ago and a semi desertic plateau hosting a multitude of modest and resilient animals and plants, La Crau.
My father bought a four acre plot that came with a modest grove of olive trees and a small vineyard. There, he built our new family home where I lived from birth until I left at 19.
A few photos show that as an infant, I was dropped on the grass, wrapped in a blanket while Papa clipped branches, raked and burned dead wood. My three older brothers are in the black and white photos with jagged edges holding bb guns. My sister, the oldest of us five, is breaking some sixties outfits.
The gentle breeze charged with aromatic smell, the consistent blue sky and the twisted branches of olive trees may have had an impact on my psyche from that early age.
You may know that olive trees are unfussy and resilient. They send roots through small crevasses, circumventing rocks along their way to uncover the minimalist moisture, hidden deeply underground. Olive trees embody what we humans wished we could do.
Mistral. That is the violent wind that drops towering trees to the ground, sending boats at sea into distress, pulls roofs off houses and wipes malevolent mosquitoes and flies. But not olive trees.
Twenty years ago, I introduced myself to Laurent, an olive tree farmer, or in the right terminology and oleoculteur.. He is a third generation farmer.Their farm is on the plateau of La Crau part of the Vallée des Baux. His olive oil is a five time recipient of the Gold Medal at the Annual Paris International Agricultural Show. The oil leans into pungency. It opens up lungs, burns the throat and when inhaled, it evolves into a taste of licorice, fennel. It’s startling.
It’s time to leave and it’s hard because I really don’t want to. The plane trees shading the old limestone farm (“mas” in Provence), the couple of mutts dogs acting mean, the giant tractor under the open barn covered in roman tiles. It takes strength to leave this place.
