Yankee Notebook: Found while lost in heaven
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The view from the hotel window of the crag that Mother climbed. Photo Courtesy of Willem Lange |
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By WILLEM LANGE - Published: November 29, 2009
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the high excitement of driving through France surrounded by phalanxes of homicidal maniacs in French, German and Italian vehicles. Since then I've been approached – at the supermarket, in the gym, on the street and after church – by people asking, variously, "Is it really that bad? Should we change our vacation plans? Did they run you off the road?"
My answers have consistently been: Yes, it's that bad; no, don't change your plans; and no, nobody actually tried to run us off the road.
I should add that Mother, who considers driving in France, and especially Paris, to be the greatest fun in the world, doesn't share my views on the subject. She is much less affected than I by automotive bullying (because, I suspect, she isn't even aware of it), and sails blithely through the most perilous situations. If I'm in the car when she's driving, I'm pushing my right foot through the floorboards, or lying on the floor in the back seat with my jacket over my head.
The truth is that we had an almost perfectly lovely time among the descendants of the folks who helped us win our revolution more than 225 years ago. We revisited several places we'd enjoyed our last time there, 10 years ago, and found a bunch of new ones. We sharpened up our French – especially with regard to road signs and menu items – and I'd like to think we diminished somewhat our U.S.-centricity; to whit, the belief that anything that is done anywhere is done best in the middle section of North America.
Over and over I remarked the difference between the effects of 2,000 years of development and organization as opposed to about 400. Much more seems to be understood, and the wheels of civilization seem to roll with less friction.
An example: There are bicycles everywhere, threading through traffic along with motor scooters in the cities, and pedaling the secondary highways everywhere – roads that for the most part lack bicycle lanes or wide shoulders. In the United States we treat our cyclists like tree-huggers or effete snobs with no rightful claim to the road, and often (ask any cyclist) blow them off, pass within inches of their handlebars, or shout obscenities as we pass.
Not so in the land of the Tour de France, where they seem to inspire respect. Approaching a group of cyclists from behind, the normally homicidal French driver slows, signals a left turn, and swings wide around it.
Out for a before-breakfast power walk in the idyllic medieval village of le Poét-Laval, I came across a trail leading up the side of a steep valley and promising to reach Leyzahut, the next village, in about three miles. The next morning I tackled it: an absolutely unremitting 1,500-foot climb to the ridge of Mont du Poët over limestone cobbles the size of plums. I thought I was doing pretty well until a young lady in jogging tights passed me and disappeared up the trail ahead.
A little later, in an oak thicket, three deer trotted across the trail ahead of me and paused to look. So did I. They looked different. Then I saw that they had horns, not antlers, that pointed backward. I was seeing the first chamois of my life! The high point of my morning.
The low point came shortly afterward on top when I realized I was lost. My dream of dining in Leyzahut went glimmering; I retreated.
Lost another time in rush-hour Nice while looking for our hotel, I was just about to park the car, unload our bags, and set it on fire, when Mother cried, "Stop!" She jumped out and ran over to a police car parked just ahead of us. She has a way with gendarmes and often inspires them to Inspector Clouseau-like gestures of honorable conduct.
For about a minute I could see her talking loudly, waving her arms and the guidebook – much like Anna Magnani at her fiery best. Pretty soon she came back, climbed into the car, and said, "Follow them." There were four of them in the car. They led us to the hotel, leaned in to give me a high-five, and warned us to keep our car doors locked while driving in Nice, to deter snatch-and-run thieves. "Wow!" I thought. "Great city!"
We traversed Mont Ventoux again – last time was in a blinding blizzard – parked at a pullout, and gazed at the distant French Alps. Dozens of cyclists, from weaving, red-faced dubbers to smooth-stroking hotshots, churned up the mountain. I tried to imagine the sheer terror that must be induced by the descent during the Tour: 70 miles an hour and around hairpin curves, on tires as narrow as a thumb. The valleys below were hazy with the blue smoke of burning grapevines.
From our hotel window in the hill town of Bonnieux we looked across the valley at Lacoste, where the fashion designer Pierre Cardin is renovating the castle of the notorious Marquis de Sade. By the look of it, he has a long way to go. (Interestingly, he also owns the Venetian palazzo that once belonged to Giacomo Casanova. Is there a pattern here?)
While Mother climbed up the rough path to the chateau, I managed to drop the Opel into a stone drainage ditch, which scared the hell out of me. But no harm done, except to my philosophic calm.
And so it went: limestone hill towns with narrow cobble streets; cliffs and cirques, the little village of Cadenet, where we celebrated our anniversary at a choucrouterie, a celebration of sausage, salt pork, hotdogs, bacon, ham and sauerkraut. Mother had lobster and scallops. The hostess brought us two flutes of champagne and announced the occasion to the cabbage-filled crowd, which gave us an ovation.
Sitting in the village square of St.-Guilhem one morning, I wrote happily in my journal while Mother, I assumed, was inside the eighth-century church nearby, praying or meditating. But she was instead hiking up the impossible crag hanging over the town. When she showed up suddenly, glistening and glowing as no prayers could have made her, and pointed up at the crag – well, I guess that was the high point of the trip for both of us.
Willem Lange is a writer, storyteller and retired contractor who lives in East Montpelier. His column appears each week in the Sunday Rutland Herald and Times Argus. He can be reached through his Web site, willemlange.com.
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