Madeleines will always taste best for Proust, and there’s a reason why I love Cape Cod in the wintertime. I’ll get back to why I say this in a bit. For now, consider the colorful statement below:
“I just wanna see some fucking lavender!!!”
-Succinct statement made by one of my travel companions today
Why do we go on vacation?
We go because we have a fuzzy-edged vision of some seldom-attained paradise that is out of our grasp on a day-to-day basis. We endure hours of cramped airplane seats in order to reach what we believe is a well-deserved reward, because we hear amazing things about the target location, and also because we think the experience will match up with the distorted images that we hold in our heads.
I already knew this, but at the same time, I didn’t really get it until today.
I should have been clued in when my first activity in Aix-en-Provence entailed my paying 30 centimes to use a prison cell-style toilet.
So I spent the previous entry lamenting the fact that I chose to visit Paris at the height of the tourist season. You, my faithful readers, probably chuckled to yourselves as I brashly announced that I was headed south in order to escape the herds of questionably-attired visitors to France. As it is now abundantly clear, I failed to realize that my satellite vacation site was without a doubt the second most popular tourist destination in this country.
Of course Provence is aesthetically pleasing. I mean, look at where we are staying. I get why everyone wants to go. But scratch just beyond the thin veneer, and you pick up on the fact that the Bed and Breakfast owner has a Long Island accent…
Even though I was here was in 1993, I still had a vision in my head that largely resembled the cover of one of my cookbooks back at home:
I totally expected that Provence would resemble something like this as soon as I rolled off the TGV. Instead, I was greeted with the bathroom view above.
I’m not that bright. God almost always has to give me several quality digs into my side before I get the hint about something. In this sense, I didn’t realize that Provence was never going to be the Provence of my Pastis-induced dreams until I was faced with a few bouts of realism.
If you ask Google what Avignon looks like, this is what it will tell you. Liars. Kinda.
According to the websites, guidebooks, and our Bed and Breakfast owners, Avignon is the “belle of the ball” as far as Provence goes. A must see. So with lavender in our eyes, we excitedly set out this morning to experience this quaint old city. I should have known better. I know France, I know what I should have expected, but still- I was too caught up in the vacation booklet version that was sold to me by a thousand advertisements over the course of many years since the early 90s.
Here is a bit of what we got:
No, it’s not horrible. But a city papered in theatric announcements, rather than ivy, was not what we wanted.
As soon as we walked into the winding old city we immediately came upon an impromptu parade of walking puppets, minstrels and other costumed locals. “Oh neat!” we naively observed, and actually decided to follow them.
I’ll be brief. Avignon in the summer has about six hundred thousand spectacles (performances, in English) going on at all hours of the day, in all corners of the city, and performed by all forms of self-appointed “actors”. There are ads for these posted everywhere- even over street signs so that you will lose your way and be forced to attend one of them. Apparently, tourists love this aspect and cannot get enough of the festive atmosphere (yes, I’m dumb enough not to know that there is an Avignon summer festival that goes on for weeks, and it looks nothing like the cookbook above).
So we get to town, and the cramped (or quaint, depending on your POV) streets are jammed with people. Amazingly, the only people more obnoxious than the tourists are the street performers prostituting themselves in the name of theater. Each time we try to make our way down a road, a person in every manner of costume comes up and tries to get us to attend their crappy spectacle. It’s a carnival of epic proportions and we’re the only group who doesn’t want to be invited.
This car will not show the way to lavender fields…
Just after high noon we realize that we must get out of this town right now and redirect our efforts to locate some real Provence sites. The city is winding, and like a hall of mirrors, it’s very hard to find the exit. A “royal” entourage weaves past us, complete with a king, minstrels and his….I don’t know- servants…who are passing out flyers for their show. Just after we escape this group, a Jeep (really, you don’t see Jeeps in this country) passes by with what looks to me like Conan O’Brien’s Masturbating Bear on board as well as a guy wearing an Aloha shirt and a life preserver around his neck. Apparently, they wanted to attract attention so that pedestrians will want to see their less than sub-par spectacle.
This is not the Provence that I envisioned, and much like the Eiffel Tower experience we had a few days ago, this starts to verge on ridiculously funny.
“I can’t believe we went to France so we could go to King Richard’s Faire.” says my disgusted sister, as the royal court ducks into a convenience store. I am still laughing at the complete non-Provençale representation of a bear riding down the cobblestone streets in a jeep. I am also delirious and feeling a bit better after taking in an emergency glass of rosé on an empty stomach. My equally-amused brother-in-law is also feeling the effects of the local vino: “Look Megan, one of the King’s men just came out of the store with a Coke! I guess pimpin’ ain’t easy….”
Oh no it’s not. Neither is being a naive tourist in Provence.
I want to keep going, but I’m pretty exhausted and need some sleep. I will tell the rest of this story tomorrow- but for now rest assured that I intend to wake up tomorrow morning with adjusted expectations.