Randouvève

On Sunday afternoon last week we went on our first hike with Radouvèze, the local hiking club.  They organise two hikes per week published in a 3 monthly schedule. There is a shorter one on the Sunday (approx. 3 hours) and a longer one each Thursday (approx. 7 hours).  Dale called the Club President and he said that we could come along for two randonees without having to join.  We have now done two and decided to join as an act of good faith for the future, and we may do another walk before we leave.

Everyone has been welcoming and there seems to be a lot of joking around, some of which we understand and some that we don’t.

Sunday’s hike started in the hills about 10 kms north west of Buis in the town of Benivay.  It was sunny but the wind was very cold.

Around the Drome there are various gorgeous road signs like this

We climbed through delightful olive groves and orchards and got great views of Mt Ventoux and Rocher St Julien. 

Apricots and Olives share the hillsides

The local Benivay people have upped the ante on trail signs with these fancy numbered markers

The randonees are very well organised.  Someone is at the front with a walkie-talkie and there is someone else who is at the rear who also has a walkie-talkie.  Everyone shouts ‘voiture’ (really pronouncing the ‘r’ because we are in the south) and ‘moto’ if you are about to be passed by a car or a motorbike.  And we were passed by three motorbikes while on a steep narrow walking track, which technically motorbikes should not be on.

On Monday we had a relatively quiet day and started turning our attention to getting organised for the arrival of our friends from Saturday 12^th.  One of our ‘chores’ was to stock up on some champagne and vin rouge, so we dutifully cleared the local supermarket out of one type of champagne and one vin rouge. When Dale brought our hire car around to load all the grog into, he noticed a strange warning signal which indicated that the car should be taken to a Renault dealer.  This resulted in the car being towed away later that day, and Dale having to get a taxi to Avignon on Tuesday (127 Euros paid for by Hertz) to pick up a replacement car.

Happily, we got a fancier version of the Renault Captur and Dale really enjoyed his taxi ride.  He said that he chatted all the way to Avignon with the driver who was a fascinating woman who lives near Buis.  She apparently has 3,000 square metres of land with olive trees that yield 300 litres of olive oil and she pays the local cooperative 4 Euros per litre to press the olive oil.   Apparently the going market rate for olive oil is 15 Euros per litre, so it is a nice little earner as a hobby.

Not sure about the colour, but the extra 20kw, extra gear ratio and GPS are welcome

On Tuesday we met with the locale Notaire who must arrange the sale and purchase of properties for both the sellers and the buyers.  Notaires are lawyers, appointed by the French Government, who are responsible for drawing up certain legal documents but they don’t do any adversarial work.  They also have a monopoly on property related work.  The Notaire in Buis, Maitre Perrossier inherited the business from her father and the family business can apparently be traced back to 1558.   She is extremely charming and very chic.

We have also been to the movies four times because Buis now has an operational cinema, which we are very excited about.

Furthermore, it shows some movies in their original language with French sub-titles.  It appears that the French are no longer insisting on foreign movies being dubbed into French to the same degree as in the past.  We have seen 45 years and Carol, both in English, as well as a French comedy.  We also saw Pride in English which we had seen last year, but the session was being sponsored by the local chapter of Amnesty International and there was a talk afterwards.  So we went along to see the film again and enjoyed it immensely the second time too, and afterwards we sat listening to the general discussion about political persecution of GLBT communities around the world.  We were pleased to be able to follow most of what was discussed.  Afterwards in the foyer (wine and chips supplied) we were asked by someone who knew we were anglophones what exactly the word ‘straight’ meant.  Quite funny trying to explain this concept if you don’t know the word for ‘bent’ in French.

We have made it an aim to walk around the little ‘suburbs’ of Buis in order to get to know the town better.  We’ve really enjoyed these walks and have seen some great scenery from the hills on the northern side of town.  We have been quite taken by the number of houses being built amidst the olive groves.  We have also discovered that Buis has a hospital although no emergency department.

The apricots are coming

We strolled through the Buis market on Wednesday, buying more supplies for our upcoming weeks with friends.  We also brought picnic supplies and headed off on a driving circuit recommended in the Michelin Guide for the Ardeche and the Drome.  The full circuit ended up taking us 5 hours and it was absolutely fabulous.

The major highlight was the view of the South Eastern Alps, and the Durance Valley, from the Col de Perty.  We decided that this was a good place for our picnic, which we had sitting inside the car because it was too cold outside.  But we had great views while we ate our lunch.

The southern alpes at the horizon

Further on we got some great views of Mt Ventoux from the North East.

The other highlights were wondering around Montbrun-les-Bains and driving through the Toulourenc Gorge.

Montrun-les-Bains is designated as one of the most beautiful villages in France and has a beautiful bell tower and an ancient fort at the top of the town, which is built on a hill side.  The interior of its church is also apparently stunning but it was closed.  This is the downside of travelling at this time of the year.  There is also a spa centre that was closed, but does open from Monday the 14^th, so perhaps there is still time to soak in a spa, sweat in a sauna and hang out in a Hammam.

The Toulourenc Gorge is incredibly narrow and follows the river of the same name that runs between two mountains.  There are sheer rock faces on either side that look like they have been carefully laid by ancient stone masons.  The water is clear and tumbles over rocks to form little waterfalls from time to time.  Apparently there are a lot of great hiking opportunities in summer.

Interesting that you need the distances in kms to 3 decimal places and that everywhere happens to be exactly within 0.5 of a km from here.  Cut sign though

On Thursday we went off on the longer hike with Randouvèze.  It took 8 hours and we were exhausted by the time we finished but it was one of those wonderful days that we will never forget.  The hike began near St Auban (about a 15 minute drive away) and it was a gloriously sunny day.  We got a lift with a delightful man call Jean-Noel, who we also chatted to a lot during the hike. 

There were 32 of us in total and the hike began with a long ascent during which we got excellent views of the Ouveze Valley and St Auban. 

Along the way we were told that we could go and look at some bear caves.  This firstly involved making a very steep descent for a few minutes.  About 10 of us went down. We chose to go down the most difficult part on our backsides.  The cave was very interesting.  It went a long way into the hill side and we only followed it about 20 metres until it reached a big hole but we could see it continuing on the other side of the hole.

The average age of the group would have been 60 something but there was one lady, Virginie, who was in her early 80s.  Virginie is a veritable mountain goat and out-paced almost every one up the climbs.  She was born in the Dolomites in Italy but married a French man and moved to France when she was young.  At one stage we were walking through some snow and as I rounded a corner I got hit with a snow ball thrown by Virginie and she had a second one ready for Dale.

The spritely Virginie in centre of the photo in the pink top

We stopped for lunch in an open grassy clearing with valley views. 

Lunch french style

We were quite organised and pulled out our pre-cut sausage, cheese and bread.  However it seems that we weren’t really that organised because we hadn’t brought any alcohol or cups.  About 10 of the men started pulling out alcohol and insisting that we have some.  People rustled up some cups for us and I’m sure that I tried about 4 different types.  I couldn’t try all because my cup was constantly full.  Catherine, who I was sitting next to, warned me that we still had a steep descent to undertake and that I shouldn’t be afraid to say no.

This was all very well but next a lady appeared with a dropper and was squeezing something, which turned out to eau de vie, into everyone’s mouth and it got more outrageous when Francis appeared with one of the biggest syringes I’ve ever seen. 

Dr Francis and his various medicines

This was his home made prune eau de vie.  In the other hand was a flask of his home made limoncello.  Catherine remarked drily that this was not limoncello and that next time she would bring the proper stuff. At this point we realised that Randouvèze is primarily a drinking club.  Virginie sidled up towards the end of lunch and said that we should remember always to bring a cup (for drinking alcohol) and a knife to cut the saucisson.

Everyone was very chatty and we got lots of lovely compliments about our French.  A few of the guys insisted on telling us all about the local flora.  Thyme grows wild throughout the region and we learnt that there are over 400 different types of Thyme.  There are also many different strains of lavender and we got a long explanation about why the lavender smell remains in the plant long after the flower is dead.  I got to try juniper berries and was told that it is used to make sauerkraut.  I’ve never made sauerkraut so this was something that I didn’t know.  There were crocuses growing wild (the stamens are used to make saffron).

We also got to know Stephen, who is from Manchester, and came to live in Buis permanently about 7 or 8 years ago.  He and his wife moved here without being able to speak any French but have taken lessons and have found it a really nice community to live in. Hopefully that augurs well for the future.

The name Buis comes from this tree, which although usually green, can turn various shades of  yellow/orange

Back to Buis

We had an early start last Saturday morning in order to catch the bus down the mountain from Alpe D’Huez to Grenoble to pick up our hire car and drive to Buis.  Dale was very pleased to get a Renault Captur to play with.

We decided to take the back road route recommended by Maps.Me and we appreciated the rural scenery, if not the winding hilly roads.

It was a very cold day but we made sure that we stopped in a few places (I needed coffee) that we thought were picturesque, including the village of Crest.

Unpruned plane trees create spiky canopies everywhere

Lavendar fields form stripe patterns across the hills

We reached Buis about 3pm in the afternoon and immediately felt at home.  Buis is our favourite French village and this is the third time that we’ve been here.  For the first two weeks we are staying in the Richards’ cottage.  We are in fact in the process of arranging to buy a half share in this cottage with Geoff and Kathy’s son Ben, who I went to university with – but more of that in the weeks to come.

In the second two weeks, we have rented a large house just out of town because some of our friends are joining us to celebrate me reaching 50 years.  On Sunday we went for a walk to locate this house.  It took us much longer to find than anticipated, but on the return journey through a little path between olive groves we saw the house below; so it turned into a lovely little randonnee.

We have only been here in summer so everything looks quite different.  The vines and fruit and plane trees are all bare whereas they are full of foliage in summer.  The lavender has also always been in bloom when we’ve been here in the past.  Having said that, the olive trees are really standing out in a way that they haven’t before.  I hadn’t realised, between all the other flora, that they really are the dominant tree in the region.  The cherry and apricot trees are also just beginning to blossom and sometimes this looks like a little dusting of snow on a hillside.

Different crops create lovely texture and colours on the hills

The Rocher St Julian towers above Buis

The olive trees provide endlessly delightful plays of light

Because the plane trees are not covered in leaves I have also focussed on the Ouveze river, which runs through Buis, more than I have in the past.

For those interested in geography Buis is in the Drome Department but is right on the border of the Vaucluse Department.  The Drome is part of the larger Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Region, while the Vaucluse is part of Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azure.  This is important because in some ways Buis has more in common with Provence, hence the olives and lavender.  In fact this part of the Drome is often referred to as Drome Provencal.

On Monday we drove to Bollene and Orange, which are in the Rhone Valley.  It was bitterly cold as the mistral wind was whipping up the Rhone River from the Mediterranean.  The locals were making little ironic jokes about how warm it was.  We hadn’t been to Bollene at all and decided to go there because Monday is market day there.  Not much to say except that the market wasn’t that great, it was freezing and Bollene is very close to the nuclear power plant at Tricastin.  There is a weird vista from town of the nuclear plant cooling towers next to some shiny new wind turbines.

We have been to Orange twice but haven’t taken the time to just look around.  It has the most amazing Roman Theatre (I like it more than the Colosseum) so that has been the reason for our two previous visits.  This time we discovered that there is both a charming old town and a large park on a hill that overlooks the Roman Theatre.

Tuesday is market day in the beautiful nearby town of Vaison la Romaine.  Vaison is in the Vaucluse and is a little bigger than Buis.  The market in Vaison is excellent. 

The tinden tree is called tilleul in french.  The flowers and leaves of the region are a major player on the world stage for linden would you believe!

This jolly display of soaps caught my attention, and it took a minute for me to realise it was because it looks like a Dalek. (Exfoliate!)

As with Orange, we have been to Vaison a number of times before but had not taken the time to just wander around.  We had come to see the Roman ruins and the amphitheatre, where we even saw a concert many years ago.  It was beautiful sunny day and neither Vaison nor Buis experience the ‘mistral’ in the same way as the towns down along the Rhone.  We discovered that Vaison has a medieval village on the south side of the river that climbs around a hill giving out to great views of the surrounding area. 

These metal belfries are very popular in the region

Now as an aside, one of my tasks was to reserve a table at a Michelin recommended restaurant in Vaison called Bistro Du’O.  My friend Carolyn is in charge of our fine dining experiences during the second two weeks and had been finding it impossible to get a response from this restaurant.  I had called the night before and received a message saying that ‘exceptionnellement’ the restaurant was closed but reassuring me that it is always open between Monday night and Saturday night. So when we arrived around Tuesday lunch time we found that it was closed even though they should have been preparing for lunch.  So I called again Tuesday and Wednesday nights – but – again – ‘exceptionnellement’ it was closed.  Finally on Thursday night I managed to make a booking.  No wonder Carolyn had been having problems getting a response.

However, when we went into the next door Salon du the (for a coffee and hot chocolate) the owners assured us that Bistro Du’O in the best restaurant in the region by a long way.  Let’s hope so.  The owners of this little Salon du the were delightful. Emilie is French and her husband, Daan is Dutch.  We stayed there for hours and naturally left with a bag full of teas.  They met while travelling in Australia and have finally decided to live in France after many years of living abroad.  Daan is a folk singer, songwriter and guitarist and he treated us (we were the only customers) to a live performance of two of his songs. 

After our warming drinks we continued our climb up the hill to the top of medieval town, including visiting an art gallery that Emilie and Daan recommended.  The two owners show their work; one lady does fascinating surrealist paintings, and the other lady creates amazing photo shopped images juxtaposing urban and natural landscapes.  In a world of unlimited time, money and walls to hand art, I think we’d have bought a piece from each artist.

Wednesday is market day in Buis and we have always loved market day in Buis.  However this is the first time that we have been here in winter and we were a little nervous about how big and vibrant it would be.  We needn’t have worried too much as there were still plenty of stalls.  It just seem to come to an end a little earlier than in summer. 

We bought plenty of vegetables to accompany the boeuf Bourguignon that Dale prepared for that evening.  When we went into the butcher to buy the boeuf, he noted in a smart arse way, replete with his southern French twang (adding a ‘g’ sound to words ending in ‘n’. e.g. demaing, bieng etc.) that we couldn’t possibly be cooking boeuf Bourguignon as it was past midday and we should already have started marinading the beef.  Now this presented a challenge because we couldn’t possible tell him that we were using a recipe that didn’t require marinading and furthermore that it is a Julia Child recipe – that interloper into French Cuisine.  This left us weekly suggesting that perhaps we would eat the boeuf tomorrow.  Thankfully he still served us.

The Boeuf was sensational by the way.  Dale spent most of the afternoon slaving over a hot stove.  We washed it down with some truly wonderful bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, which was a steal in Australian terms at 15 Euros for the bottle.

Continuing the theme of following the markets, we headed to Nyons on Thursday.  Nyons is the capital of the sub-region that Buis belongs to and is also part of Drome Provencal.  It is famed for being the home of a special species of olive that is appellation origine controllee.  The olives grown around Buis are part of this ‘appellation’.  It is a smallish black olive and we took the opportunity to buy some of the olives themselves as well as some oil made from olives pressed in Buis.

We had lunch at a little restaurant called Le Petit Square that was managed by a very chatty French man (Christian) and his very chatty English wife (Collette).  Christian described his restaurant as ‘Anglo-central’ in Nyons.  Collette told us that she manages a couple of properties near Nyons for some people from Melbourne.  Australians are everywhere.  The lady in the Tourist Office in Buis also told us that there are some Australians who own a property just outside Buis.  It does rather destroy one's delusions about being one of a small number in Australia to really know about this area.

The colourful Eygues River flows through Nyons

Nyons is also a medieval town like Vaison, in that cobblestone streets run up the hillside between stone medieval buildings.  There is a delightful ‘little’ chapel at the top of the hill and you get good views of the surrounding countryside. 

We visited the very informative Musee d’Huiles (Olive Museum), bought some soap (Nyons is also known for manufacturing soap) and visited the little shop of a lady who makes mohair clothing.  This time we met her daughter who has just returned from Australia and New Zealand and is just about to return to New Zealand to live.  The daughter started off telling us that she’d spent 12 months in Perth, but after some more chatting about work, she offered up that she’d worked for 7 month at the mines in Karratha (‘le  pauvre’ as they say in French).

We drove back via the Col d’Ey which affords views north across Ennuye Valley and then winds south down towards Buis and the Ouveze Valley.

We went out for dinner to the local pizzeria and each had delicious pizzas. Dale had a wonderful chorizo and Roquefort combination while I went for the olive overdose of olives plus olive tapenade (named the Buxoise – i.e. people who live in Buis). 

After dinner we went to see a concert by Les Petits Chanteurs a La Croix de Bois, a choir of 11 to 14 year old boys who attend a college that focuses on educating boys who want to sing.  The choir travels all around Europe and the world (although it appears not so much since Le Crise). The concert was in the church and it was full (approx 250).  We had a couple of little jokes with some people sitting next to us about how uncomfortable church pews are and how white the boys’ socks were. 

The choir focuses on sacred, classical, traditional, current and world music.  We enjoyed the second half, which is to say the non-sacred and classical music.  A few of the boys had beautiful voices and we particularly enjoyed a song called ‘Sous le ciel de Paris’ (Under the Paris sky) which many in the audience seemed to know and which received rapturous applause.  We were utterly exhausted by the time we collapsed into bed on Thursday night.

Today we did our first small randonnee that started near the town of Pierrelongue and went up into the hills between olive trees and orchards.  Dale has arranged for us to join an organised randonnee on Sunday with the Buis randonnee club (called Randouveze), which we are looking forward to.

The church at Pierrelongue built atop a huge rock above the houses

We have also had quite a bit of administration to do in relation to the purchase of the property in Buis.  It has been fun and challenging organising and attending meetings with the bank, insurance agent and local notaire.  We have actually managed to open a French bank account (it only took an hour and a half), which we had begun to imagine was impossible.

The hills are alive with the sound of skiing

Here it is – our very first blog entry for the ‘Festival of my 50^th birthday’ holiday.  We are in a winter wonderland at Alpe d’Huez.

But first - Vale Vera Mitchell

As many of you know, Dale left Melbourne on Monday 15^th February, a few days earlier than we had planned.  Sadly, we had received news a few days earlier that Dale’s great-aunty Vera had died at the age of 93.  As we were already due to arrive in Highcliffe (UK) to see her and uncle John on the 19^th, Dale decided to go ahead to see if he could be of any help to uncle John (age 95). 

Uncle John was very happy to see Dale, and he put Dale to work helping with final arrangements for the funeral and seeing to other administrative necessities. 

I arrived on Friday 19^th as planned.  It was great to see how much support uncle John was getting from family, friends and neighbours.

We had a wonderful time with Uncle John looking at many fantastic photos of the greater Mitchell/Bradbury/Wright family.

Uncle John and Aunty Vera liked going to the Toby for Lunch, in nearby Hinton, so we went there for lunch before heading off to London on Sunday.

We like Christchurch and made sure that we had breakfast there on Sunday and had a short walk around this very picturesque town.

We then had one night in London and met friends Andrew and Reece for dinner in Soho.

On Monday morning we met up with Anthony and Dennis at St Pancras station for the Eurostar journey to Paris.  They had spent the night at the luxurious St Pancras Renaissance Hotel and whereas we had to schlep our luggage across to the station from the Premier Inn across the road, they had a valet bring all their luggage down on a trolley.  The valet then put all their luggage through security, assisted them to clear customs and finally put all the luggage onto the train.  It was a very impressive advertisement for staying at 5 star hotels.

We parted company with Anthony and Dennis in Paris, but will be seeing them again on the 12^th of March in Buis-les-Baronnies (Buis from now on).  We continued on by train to Lyon and Grenoble, and then bus to Alpe d’Huez (11 hours travel in all).

Alpe d’Huez

Dale decided to try skiing at Alpe d’Huez because it is relatively close to Buis and because we know of it through the spectacular stage finishes in the Tour de France.  It is one of the older French ski resorts but is still very much a resort town.  After ascending the zig zag road you arrive at the town at 1860m.  We stayed in a charming hotel that is now being run by the 5^th generation.

Being an old resort, there is an astounding array of ski lifts from old to modern.  The most intriguing one was this thing nicked named the ‘lobster pots’, which transported people from the lower to the upper part of the village.

From there the ski fields go up and up

The village from a nearby ski run

to an ultimate height of 3330m at Pic Blanc (by comparison Mt Hotham maxes out at 1922m)

From Pic Blanc, the village can be seen as a tiny patch in the centre of the photo

There are quite a lot of English speaking people here and there are large numbers of 20 something males roaming about.  There don’t seem to be as many 20 something females.  Having said that there is a mix of ages and quite a lot of French families.

It has snowed quite a bit since we arrived and Dale has skied extensively each day.

The evidential selfie

I love how any building is dwarfed by the mountains

From Pic Blanc the Alpes seem endless

I have done some hiking in the snow.

On Thursday I spent the day shopping and sight-seeing down in Grenoble.

There is an awesome fort that overlooks the town and from which you can enjoy spectacular views of Grenoble and the surrounding Alps.  I was interested to read that you can work out the boundaries of the old town, by where the red rooves stop.

The old town is very beautiful.  It has an extensive tram network that snakes its way through the centre of the old town. I also particularly liked the organic iron work on the balconies, which is so reminiscent of Paris, Barcelona and Buenos Aires. 

We have had a great meal at a restaurant called La Cremaillere.  It specialises in local ‘Savoyarde’ fare.  Picture us sharing raclette complete with a massive block of cheese and raclette grill at our table.  We’ve booked go back on Friday night.  We also sampled a prune liqueur and, more intriguingly, a verveine one.  Lovers of The Vampire Diaries will know why we found the verveine so intriguing.