Eight Days in Avignon

The Avignon theater festival is the oldest and biggest in France. This is its 66th year. It is a world famous event attracting theater lovers from around the world, both as performers and as spectators. This year 7000 artists from France and 25 other countries are participating in the festival. The little walled town, with a normal population of about 12,000 people, welcomes another 100,000 onto its streets to view the shows and sit in its cafes. Over 1000 performances are on offer.

Each year the festival organizers invite an internationally celebrated theater artist to be the artistic inspiration of the festival. This year it was Jos and Emily's friend, Simon McBurney. He offered Emily a job working with a Swedish couple who have an installation/show here. It was a wonderfully fun opportunity for her, but of course she needed her live-in child care and since Jos was busy in Paris, that job fell to me. So I left Rick home to do all the work of entertaining our clients, packed my bag with sun dresses and shorts and hopped the TGV to the south of France. Nice work if you can get it.

Here's a post about my adventures with lots of photos of Avignon, The City of Popes. I had only visited here once before, and then just for an afternoon to meet with friends. By the end of a week here, where we were put up in our own private apartment, I feel as if I've gotten to know it quite well. Of course, Avignon during festival time is consumed by festivities. There are a huge number of people on every street in town, hawking their shows or wandering from one event to the other. There is practically no public space that is not transformed into a temporary theater for the three weeks in July when the festival is under way.

It was quite remarkable walking down the street with Emily. There was hardly a time we went out when we didn't bump into one of her theater friends, as everyone who is anyone in theater comes to Avignon in July. My first day in town we saw Bernie Collins who is performing his hilarious show BP Zoom. He is a wonderful clown and a very great guy.

 

Suffice it to say that the festival takes over the entire city. There are really two festivals, the In, and the Off. Emily's show was part of the In, which basically means the show is sponsored by the festival and the artists are paid and housed. Their shows are advertised for them. The greater part of the festival, however, is the Off. It's more like a fringe festival and anyone who wants to rent a theater and try to attract an audience to his/her show, is free to do so, but they receive no support from the main festival. Lots of people come to perform and every square inch of free wall, pole, fence, wire, is covered in posters. Walking down the street are actors in costume, playing instruments, doing magic, yelling out the times of their shows. Flyers are handed out over-generously. A lot of trees are sacrificed to support these events!

The nice thing for actors who come to perform here is that 4000 producers and promoters are also in the audience. They are actively looking for new talent. In France one can sell a show and find support much more easily than in the US. Bernie, who is an American, went to school with Jos but has lived in France for 30 years. It's so much more probable to find work here.

Apparently a lot of off shows are quite successful. Tickets are not inexpensive, on average costing about 20€ a seat. But if you're good, you're often sold out.

 

Performances go on all day long and into the night and the lines are quite impressive. I only went to two shows, one In and one Off, but both of them were packed. Frankly I preferred the Off one!

The restaurants and hotels must make a year's income in this one month. What a jumping scene.

The logo for the festival was created by William Kentridge, the South African artist who works a lot with animation and video. He also had an exhibition in town. This is a shadow on the wall of a pretty little chapel, cast by one of his sculptures.

 

Avignon is called the city of popes because the papacy moved its seat from Rome to Avignon in 1309 during the Catholic schism. 5 genuine popes and 2 anti-popes worked from Avignon during the 14th and 15th centuries. The papacy owned Avignon until 1791 when it finally became a part of France. Even as late as 1815, the Catholic church tried to again lay claim to it.

The gothic pope's palace is the grandest edifice in town. It has a very fortified appearance, as it certainly was. The walls are 17' thick! I think the popes who built this structure were expecting trouble.

 

It's a rather massive structure set upon a large place. What it lacks in charm, it makes up for in the impression of power.

The old town of Avignon, is almost completely enclosed in its original walls. This is very rare in France as it certainly restrains the growth of the city. Of course a new town has sprung up outside the walls, but within the walled part of town, everything is much as it has been for hundreds of years. And the new town may as well be an entirely different city as one sees nothing of it from inside the old town.

Apparently the walls were never meant to be terribly secure. They were a statement rather than a deterrent, as there are no watch towers from which to shoot arrows at the enemy. Once inside the thick walls of their palace, the popes were completely secure. The city walls are very beautiful.

The second most famous monument in Avignon is its bridge. Sur le Pont d'Avignon (on the Avignon bridge) is a song every French student learns. As you can see, most of the bridge has been washed away. Built in the late 1100s, it was often destroyed when the Rhône river flooded. It hasn't been used as a bridge for hundreds of years and it slowly collapsed. Only 4 of the original 22 arches remain today.

 

When I first saw the Cafe In & Off, I thought it was a mistake and had meant to be the In & Out, but that was before Emily explained to me about the two festivals. This café is just across the place from the pope's palace.

 

The city of Avignon itself seemed a bit shabby to me. There is some wonderful architecture yet the sense I had was that it has seen better days. The buildings are rather dirty with years of pollution and paint is often peeling off from the doors and shutters. Perhaps this is how they like it here.

 

Being a religious town for so long means that there are lots of churches, cloisters and monasteries. In July all these spaces become theaters.

 

The grandest buildings are all clustered around the pope's palace. Our neighborhood was east of there and much more residential.

 

Every square in town has cafes with numerous chairs, waiting to serve meals to the multitudes. During the rest of the year, one wonders what becomes of all these places.

We found we enjoyed cooking at home rather than eating out every meal. Luckily the festival had provided Emily with a very nice little place with a reasonably equipped kitchen. I think half the inhabitants must leave town and rent their places to the incoming actors.

 

I like the way towns are designed in southern France and Spain, where the weather is often so hot. Of course cities were built long before we had our big vehicles and getting around by car is tricky. But the narrow lanes and alleyways which open on to large squares are so practical, providing shade for walking.

Often these buildings have inner courtyards which aren't visible from the street.

I got familiar with the little passageways which, despite the ubiquitous posters, I found very charming.

Generally, when finding my way from one spot to another, I picked out the smallest passageways on my map.

Some of the dwellings are really very grand, although they also seem a bit neglected. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, when many of these houses were built, Avignon was a banker's town. (Money changers naturally followed the power.)

I found there to be lots of photo opportunities. I am restraining myself mightily in this post. I took loads of shots of the city.

I particularly liked walking around in the morning hours. The revelers stay up to the wee hours of the night and don't get up early, so I had a more leisurely time walking before noon. All the cafes and restaurants were busy setting up for another busy day.

Besides the enormous numbers of posters, there is a great deal of graffiti, as, I suppose, in most cities of any size.

Even in some of the most elegant neighborhoods, the graffiti artists make their nightly rounds. We saw one man repainting his gate. He had a large can of paint. I suspect he makes frequent use of it.

Week 14: Garden Visit

The Queen's Chair, a giant natural sculpture on display at Chaumont-sur-Loire

The rhythm of life has changed dramatically as people are beginning the rentrée (the reentry). There is a hint of Autumn in the air, we find ourselves reaching for sweaters, and the days are shorter, a few leaves are thinking about turning colors. Fewer meals are served on the terrace as the beginnings and ends of days are cooler. Less people arrive on the Place, the castle is only open now on weekends. It's time to order the firewood and get the fuel tank filled. Other signs of the end of the season: Celine, the hairdresser is back. Rick and I no longer look so scruffy. Anne and Christine suddenly reappeared and their shutters are open again after weeks of being firmly shut. They have been soaking up the sun on a Greek Island. And speaking of islands, Quinn and family are somewhere in the Adriatic as I write this, enjoying "the Mediterranean as it once was" (as the Croatian tourist board slogan would have it).

We had several quiet days this week, although we weren't completely free. We did have some Russians staying with us for a couple of nights. Two families, each with two children. The fathers are cousins. Those days were not quiet at all as the four children were all under the age of 8. One family now lives in New York and the other in Israel, so they meet in Europe during the summer and spend time together. Monday was Adi's birthday, she was the oldest girl, turning 7 at Maison Conti. Her father got up early to drive to Vibraye for cake, as Monday is the day our own boulangerie is closed. He arrived back at the house about 9am just as everyone was coming down for breakfast. He was carrying two huge boxes of large and small cakes and numerous pastries of every description. Adi showed her wisdom by asking to delay the cake consumption until the evening. I was impressed by her restraint. They had a long day visiting the Loire Valley and then returned to the house. We had set them up a big festive table in the dinning room and they celebrated into the night. 

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We profited, as they say over here, from a few days without responsibilities, and did some touring ourselves. Most of this post is devoted to a garden visit we made early in the week. We have been hearing about Chaumont-sur-Loire from Georges. From June to October each year numerous landscape architects are invited to create imaginative gardens which all respond to a theme. The result is acres of fabulous exposition garden plots which are open to the public. Since this International Festival of Gardens is towards the end of its season, we were anxious to visit and discover what we've been missing. The festival was created in 1992 and is now world renowned.

We opted for the garden tour only, although one can purchase tickets to visit the château itself and the celebrated stables, which when built in the early 1800s were the most sophisticated and best-equipped in the world. The castle is in the château fort style, that is it was fortified to withstand attack. During the Renaissance, when wars were no longer fought at castle walls, buildings became much sleeker and delicate. Kings and nobles tried to convert these old, rather squat castles and added graceful Renaissance touches as they were able. The castle of Montmirail is an excellent example of that, as is Chaumont-sur-Loire. This particular château was purchased by Catherine de Medici who was queen of France from 1547-1559 and a very ruthless character (she was the author of the St Barholomew's Massacre, where thousands of protestants, guests at her own daughter's wedding, were assassinated). The king, her husband, Henry II was very much in love with his long-time mistress Diane de Poitiers and gave her the castle of Chenonceau, the most beautiful and famous château in the Loire valley. Upon the death of the king, Catherine forced Diane to trade Chenonceau for Chaumont. Apparently this was heartbreaking to Diane, but one can't feel too sorry for her. Chaumont-sur-Loire is really a stunning location.

The park is huge, with beautiful manicured lawns and gorgeous old trees and shrubs arranged to create breathtaking views from every angle.

One can walk for hours, (or better yet ride a bike) down well-tended paths that wander through seemingly endless woodlands. Although we didn't see a gardener the whole day, there must be a small army of them as every blade of grass is meticulously trimmed and every tree perfectly manicured.

The vistas over the Loire River are spectacular. We enjoyed watching an art class put their impressions down on paper.

Along one pathway a row of basket chairs were arranged for enjoying the view. I loved the design.

It was a splendid day to enjoy the exposition gardens. There were hundreds of people there at the same time, but the grounds are so immense that we never felt crowded. Twenty-four exposition gardens were created to respond to this year's theme Body and Soul. 

One of my personal favorites was the tea garden, complete with a wall of tea cups at the entry. Each afternoon tea is actually served in the porcelain cups in the charming little garden behind.

The garden itself was a cottage garden filled with a jumble of flowering plants.

Each garden had a panel at the entry with a short explanation of the idea behind the garden design. My favorite was this:

"Mysterious and light, fanciful and joyful, this garden evokes the soul of those departed and works on the idea of reincarnation. The presence of birds brings peace to its visitors." It then quotes this marvelous story by Philippe Cailltaud:

Every day at the end of the 1970s I went to see my grandparents, who lived in a street close to mine. The rue du Haut-Pas in Dieppe. They lived in a flat on the first or second floor. I can't remember now. I often saw my grandmother feeding the birds on the kitchen window ledge. A group of feathered creatures, that was to say the least mixed, had become habitual visitors and came to beg for their sustenance every day. Side-by-side there were pigeons, sparrows and of course a seagull; an emblematic creature of the town, providing the soundtrack of life in Dieppe. It seemed to be the same ones who always came back and my grandmother talked to them. She had a conversation with them. One day she explained to me that these weren't in fact just any old birds: they were the reincarnation of members of her family (and so of mine) that she had known well and who had died at various times in the past. Obviously their appearance had changed a little, but she could recognize them because their fundamental attitudes had remained the same. So Aunt Léontine was still as stingy and surly, Uncle Marcel, miserly, Uncle Ferdinand generous and musical, Aunt Alice reliable and cheery, Godmother still ate as much, and so on and so on. She recognized the dead people who came to visit her. She gave them her little offerings and all these birds found they were given names. Dieppe Metempsychosis. So it seems that in my family, our souls transmigrate into birds.

There were several water gardens, reflecting white puffy clouds, with golden carp swimming below the surface.

We entered one garden through a spiral path that led to a central space where one could relax on hand-crafted chaise lounges. This was purported to be mother nature's birth canal.

Some of the gardens afforded lovely views through the trees and down to the river.

All along there were places to sit and relax and enjoy the many colors, glorious day and pleasant aromas.

 

Ceramic balls of various sizes make wonderful benches

 

Tibetan themed prayer garden

After exiting the exposition gardens, which are re-created by guest gardeners each year, you find another space called the Experimental Garden, created by the regular Château gardening staff. It is evolving but permanent. I am slightly partial to vegetables, so I particularly enjoyed this one, as it is basically a big kitchen garden with its seasonal crops grown and displayed in highly attractive and creative ways.

Vertical seems to be a big theme in the garden and it's such a great way not only to get more space, but allow the produce to grow unencumbered.

If you've been in Paris and seen the famous vertical garden at the Quai Branly, by the new museum near the Eiffel Tower, you know what a gorgeous and exotic thing it can be. Basically a building is covered with a kind of netting that holds soil and an irrigation system. Plants of various shapes, colors and textures are tucked up and down the fabric and create a living wall of plant growth. The technique was first developed here.

 

After hours of garden exploration, one has a whole series of cafés and restaurants to choose from for either a quick refeshment or a full-on meal. No wonder Georges and his family spend two full days here.

We, on the other hand, had to hurry back home to prepare the house for our next visitors.

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The week in Montmirail ended with a Brocante, basically a village-wide garage sale. During the season one can always find one village or another hosting such a sale. This week was our turn.

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Moon rising over the Loire