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Boston Bureau

Provence in the Rain

05/05/07 · 3:03 pm :: posted by CCToday     

    ^{Avignon is a lyrically lovely small, walled city. This is one of a dozen boulevards there.}
 

 Van Gogh's sunlight eclipsed

by Libby Hughes, Boston/Provence Bureau for Cape Cod Today

To see France's famed Provence area in the rain is an utter travesty, but not to see it at all is double jeopardy. So, I only imagined what impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh saw.

The 120 mile per hour train picked me up at the Paris train station in Gare de Lyon and deposited me two and a half hours later in Avignon, the hub of Provence. The clouds were spiraling in long, gray tubes on the way down. Oh well, the vineyards needed the rain and so did the fields. Small consolation!   The first photo on right is the Pope's Palace from the river.

As I mentioned in my column from NYC, "taxi" is a no-no for my hiking friend from California. We took the shuttle bus from the train station (1 euro/10 cents) to the bottom of Avignon's main street. Then, it was a 15 minute walk to the Mercury hotel (115 euros a night), when the heaven's opened up. What more can I say?

Rest? Are you kidding? To the Pope's Palace we trekked. Inside, we spent three hours climbing stone steps and going through football field size halls and other rooms, assisted by an audio guide.  The second photo is the Pope's Bridge with the palace in the background and the third photo is the view from atop the palace.

I did not know that the religious schisms in Rome drove seven Popes to the peace and quiet of Avignon where they could get away from pope politics. For a couple of centuries--14th to 16th--the secession Popes brought a booming economy to Avignon. Today, tourism is big business.

I am not really a tourist who likes being shepherded in big groups, getting in and out of buses. So, I succumbed to two half day tours in a minivan with 3 or 4 other sightseers.

The first day, we scheduled a couple of towns associated with Vincent Van Gogh. Because this is May, the sunflowers, red poppies, and deep purple lavender fields were not in full bloom.

Arles was the first town where Van Gogh spent a year in a hospital there, which he painted in more vivid colors of blue and yellow than we saw from under umbrellas. Near the first century Roman ruins of a colisseum is the yellow cafe that Van Gogh captured on canvas at night. The yellow cafe is preserved and operates as a cafe as it did in the late 1800s.

Next was St. Remy where Van Gogh stayed for 53 weeks in a mental institution , the fourth photo, the hospital at Arles where he was also a patient is a museum today.  Below that is his painting of the same scene.

His monastic bedroom at St. Remy was painted in a pale lime with an iron bed, austere green curtains, a chair, and a old school type desk with a lid and ink hole. His one window overlooked a poppy field. His own painting of his bedroom is in brilliant colors. In his year at St. Remy, he painted 150 oils and 100 drawings.

Van Gogh only painted for ten years--1880 to 1890--and he finished 879 paintings in all, but he only sold two in his lifetime.

Troubled by melancholia (depression), Van Gogh was disappointed in love and suffered from self-mutilation and low self-esteem.

The guides were discussing France's election in between stops. They were in favor of Sarkozy instead of the lady, Ms. Royal, because they say her socialist democrat ideas will take France back to the old ways. They feel France needs to reform and become business oriented. They complained about the taxes taking 60% of their income. You'll know the results by the time this column appears.

Despite the rain, Provence is charming and so are the people. I won't bore you with the other sights. You'll just have to see them for yourself--IN THE SUNSHINE.

One other must visit out of Paris is a 40 minute trip to Giverny to Claude Monet's home on right, gardens, lily pond, and bridge, whose arbor is dripping with fragrant lilacs. The gardens are breathtaking.

You see there all the colors Monet used in his paintings from yellow, peach, turquoise, varying shades of mauve, hints of red, and tulips with Gothic-shaped petals. Walter Annenberg's Foundation gave money for the underground tunnel, connecting the house gardens with the lily pond. The Annenbergs had their own personal collection of Impressionist paintings, which they donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Monet's huge studio is now a gift shop.

Each room in Monet's home has an impressionist color: egg shell blue, lime sherbert, a canary yellow dining room, and a blue and white kitchen with hanging copper pots.

That's all from France, folks!

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