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Published: August 17th 2005
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La chambre d'hote
This is where we stayed two nights, out in the vineyards just south of Cucuron. Our room was on the right end of the house. Luberon: Monday July 18- Wed 20
After the wedding we planned to take a couple days in the countryside as we drove up to Michèle’s house. We wanted to give our friends time to recover after the wedding and I thought it would be a good idea to see the Luberon since Matthieu had recommended it. He said it was even more beautiful than Ardèche. It certainly was beautiful and we found the most gorgeous little bed & breakfast, called a chamber d’hôte. The couple who owns it inherited the land with a large barn on it which they worked very hard to convert into their home. One end of the building has become the room they rent out to tourists. They were very warm and welcoming and we felt very at home. The vineyards surrounding the house are mostly syrah, but they also have muscat as table grapes.
We traveled around to several little towns, which were all very cute and very provencal. Cucuron was the closest to our chamber d’hôte, and it has a very nice fountain and pond in the center of town where we had lunch one day. Tuesday is market day and the fountain is surrounded
by farmers selling fresh produce, more kinds of delicious cheese than we will every be lucky enough to see in the US, lots of nuts and olives and dried fruits, and the usual assortment of everything else you can think of.
Though Cucuron was a nice town we liked Lourmarin even better. Mom and I visited the château and Dad found an amazing little restaurant which seemed to be in the cook’s home courtyard. We were the only customers and the food was amazingly good home cooking. Dad discovered St Félician cheese, a soft goat cheese from Ardèche. I’m still mourning the loss of good, stinky French cheese in the US. If the European Union ever succeeds at forcing the French to pasteurize all their milk it will be a sad day: many delicious cheeses will be forever lost.
One of the other villages we spent some time at was Ansouis. The town was nice of course, all the ones in Luberon are, but what I liked more was the château. Our host at the chamber d’hôte told us we couldn’t leave until we’d taken the château’s tour. It is still in habited by two families who are some of
the original owners. The whole tour was wonderful, but the two things that left the biggest impressions on me were the kitchen and the tunnel system. The kitchen is original, without running water, and it is still used every day by the family. The old copper pots and other things there all belonged in a museum, which is what these people really are living in. There was a fake well in the older medieval part of the house, which we were told never had water in it. It is an escape route for the château’s inhabitants and had outlets in surrounding villages as well as out in the fields. One other thing that sticks in my mind is that the beds in the Renaissance part of the château were short and made for people to sit up in while they slept. Apparently only dead people lay down: it was a position reserved for the dead. People were so afraid of death that they would sleep sitting up.
On a brighter note, I completely agree that the Luberon is one of the most beautiful places in France, (though my heart will always be in Ardèche). The villages are quaint, the rolling
Dans les cerisiers du Luberon
Je voulais être déjà chez Michèle, où le cérisier me connais. hills of vineyards are stunning, and the caves (winery tasting rooms) have delicious wine which is ridiculously cheap. We stayed in Luberon two nights instead of the originally planned one night, then set off up the A7 for my home: the departments of Drome & Ardèche.
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