Blue Sky Living

Hidden Places - Foret de cedres

I must have passed the turning a hundred times. About 1 kilometre the Lourmarin side of Bonnieux is a sign post for the Foret de Cedres and the Village des Bories. For years the concept of strolling through a cedar forest or looking at some conical shaped stone houses clearly didn't prove that alluring. This week something changed. Maybe I am growing old. Anyway I discovered possibly the best panorama in the Luberon - previously I thought this was from the terrace of the Bastide de Gordes, where the view just about makes up for the cost of a beer - oh and there were some cedar trees too.

The photo above is of Bonnieux from the Cedar Foest, below are some autumnal shots taken near our house.

 

Hidden Places - Vallon des Auffes Marseille

Famous but difficult to find Vallon des Auffes is the small port where boullabaise, the golden (so named for cost rather than colour reasons) fish soup was first created. Why hidden? The entrance is a small alleyway between two non-descript buildings. Given Marseille’s far from salubrious reputation, it’s the type of dark dingy street you can easily imagine getting mugged in, but brave the first fifteen yards and follow the steep crumbling steps in a precipitous downward curve and you arrive in a hidden land. Small boats bobbing in the clear sea, fishermen mending nets and small cottages painted in Mediterranean bright colours. It’s more reminiscent of a Corsican cove than the sea front in France’s second biggest city. There are two places to eat Chez Fonfon (04.91.52.14.38)

 an upmarket fish restaurant and a busy bustling pizzeria - Chez Jeanott (

04 91 52 11 28)

How to get there - Follow the coastal road around the old port heading west. Keep hugging the coast for approx 5km until you see the pictured war memorial on your right. Park, cross the road, and look for a ridiculously narrow entrance which you can’t possibly believe will lead anywhere.

Hidden Places - Club 55

Club 55 The first of an occasional series of hidden places to visit in Provence.

Cote D’Azur afficianados will want to know how Club 55 on St Tropez’s Pamplonne beach could possibly be described as hidden. After-all this is possibly the most photographed beach club in the world. Every summer the pages of celebrity magazines are full of ageing old stars wobbling off boats onto the pontoon and the svelte frames of pretty young actresses being bent double by the gentlest of sea-breezes. Club 55 has been chic since its creation in 1955 and you would have thought that a place frequented through the decades by every celebrity from Bardot to Bono, would be out of reach of the mere mortal. But no, hence the hidden places qualification. You just have to know not to be put off by the reputation. In fact anybody can walk along the beach straight into the wooden shack that serves lunchtime snacks. For the location, the price is reasonable - Spaghetti Bolognese is €12. I hasten to add that this is not the main restaurant but even so as the photo shows we managed to hook up with some beautiful (and not so beautiful) people including a catwalk model who was taller than me.

FEATURE: Behind the scenes of a Provencal market

When author Jamie Ivey spent a year researching his third book about Provencal markets, he discovered that life behind the picturesque stalls was not as rosy as it seemed....

Early one Sunday morning in July the first whisper of the day’s heat stirs through the narrow streets of L’Isle sur La Sorgue. The backs of vans clatter open, olives are decanted from vast plastic vats into pretty wicker baskets, table legs snap open and parasols are fanned out like peacock’s tails. A trader stabs open a fresh cardboard box full of jars of tapenade and sun dried tomato paste. He wipes each individually with a cloth and mounts them on his stall in a rainbow of Provencal colours. Still the vans keep on coming - honey vendors, lavender sellers, fruit and vegetable men - the space evaporates as the blistering sun levers the weak moon below the horizon.