Goult & the Luberon!

One of the perks of blogging is that you meet some interesting and fun people!

I had met a great Canadian couple in Nice last year via Facebook, and they invited us to visit them this summer while they were staying in Goult.  I had previously visited Lacoste, Bonnieux, and Lourmarin, but so it was that we drove to the Luberon and had a long weekend visit and sightseeing stay with Teresa of French Provençal Touch with a Twist and her husband, Adam.  Gordes, Menerbes, Isle-sur-la Sorgue, Goult, and the Château de la Canorgue (the setting in the film “A Good Year,” which was based on the book, “A Year in Provence” by Peter Mayle) were our target areas.  Browsing through Goult’s annual brocante market and antique stalls in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, enjoying the regional foods and rosé wines, getting to know our hosts, and even dancing salsa & bachata with the hostess in the courtyard (did I mention enjoying the rosé wines?) made for a wonderful and memorable stay. We can’t wait to make this an annual friendship event and look forward to visiting the Luberon again next summer with them – I should take my dance shoes next time, although they wouldn’t do well in the gravel!

 

Brocante in Goult

Restaurant owner

Aux Fines Herbes restaurant

Friendship sealed with rose

Ravioli with white truffles

ham and fig salade

Tapas assortment plate

Tomate Mozza entree

fish dish

soupe aux fraises

tiramisu

town poster

 

 

 

Lourmarin in Provence

A recent trip to the Luberon included a stop in Lourmarin, a charming town to stroll, shop, and café hop, not to mention the final resting place for the French philosopher, Albert Camus.

According to France Today, “Camus’ first visit to the region, in 1937, was brief but in 1946 he came from Paris with three fellow writer friends and actually stayed with them at the Château, in Spartan rooms set far apart which felt spooky at night, his at the bottom of the tower. Armed with the carefree camaraderie and joie de vivre of youth, Camus loved Lourmarin – witness his letter of 1947 to his friend and poet, René Char, who hailed from nearby L’Ile-sur-la- Sorgue:  “The region in France that I prefer is yours, more precisely the foot of the Luberon… Lourmarin, etc.”  Camus was just 46 on January 4, 1960, when he died near Sens in a car crash on his way to Paris– snatched midlife, as if to stage an ironical metaphor of the absurdity of life which was central to his philosophical preoccupations.”

 “L’absurde naît de la confrontation de l’appel humain avec le silence déraisonnable du monde.” 

(“The absurd is the product of a collision or confrontation between our human desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life and the blank, indifferent “silence of the universe.”) 

 

 

Strolling through the town, I  witnessed le football fever for “Les Bleus” before a World Cup match, saw many amusing store front novelties, including an American song lyric sung by Jimmy Hendrix, and passed lovely fountains….all in a picturesque backdrop in the heart of Provence.

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