Like so many others, our plans for travel in 2020 were thrown into disarray. It hardly seems right to complain, since so many people have suffered real pain and loss, whereas our only pain is that of gentle sorrow. And yet, I find myself wistful. This year we were at long last to lead our son, his wife and their baby daughter back to the spot we have come to love as perhaps no other.
I have been traveling to France regularly for fifty years, and over that time, we have criss-crossed almost every department whether by car, by train or by bike. In the seventies, eighties and nineties we went every three years or so, but then even more often as we passed into the 21st century. Paris, and an arc spreading west from there through Rouen in Normandy and down to Montaigu in Vendée, are where our French roots were nurtured, and where our friends still live. The rolling verdant hills studded with grazing cows and apple trees, the broad beaches and limestone cliffs that sweep down the Atlantic coast, the half-timbered houses along cobble stoned streets, the graceful gothic churches with their delicate arches; these are the scenes that are most evocative of home.
And yet, the lure of the south was smoldering within us, and in 2004 we headed to Provence in southeastern France. This was to be our first stay of many in a little region called the Luberon in the department of Vaucluse. The Luberon mountains form a final pine-carpeted ridge as the Alps ripple down to the Mediterranean. Sun-baked perched villages swathed in ochre and crested with russet tiled roofs are interspersed with vineyards and forests. So, on that fateful day in July of 2004, with the bustle of the modern TGV train station in Avignon behind us to the west, we twisted expectantly through the hills. Long before the days of Airbnb, we unlocked the gate to a small restored rental home in a tiny village called Lagnes, and we fell in love.
Gradually, as the years went by and we returned to the Luberon again and again, we gathered in our daughter, her family and many of our friends–American friends and French friends, young friends, and those who are less young–so eager were we to share the wonder of this magical place. Like traveling along tentacles, our adventures spiraled out to include the surrounding area, but the Luberon was where we began and ended each day. It was always at the heart.
As I scroll now through the photos of those halcyon days, and relive all those moments with people I love, I am a little sad. Hopefully this is just a pause and not an end. But I am also immensely grateful for all the adventures, for all the meals filled with laughter and wine, for all those glittering images that rise within me at a moment’s notice, and that will be with me as long as I live.