Cafe in St. Saturnin

As a photographer I am rewarded every year we go to Provence by the incredible clear light. There are places on Earth that seem to catch the light better than others. Around here I would nominate St. Augustine, Florida as one of those places. In France, Paris, of course, has wonderful light but I prefer the country and the country and towns of Provence are full od a rich defining light. This little cafe with the sun streaming through it's rustic awning looked like a painting thanks to the light.

Joseph Talon

This was a statue in the middle of St. Saturnin-les-Apt. Joseph Talon is considered the "Father of truffle raising" in Provence. If this is so, he's a hero to me, too.

Town name.

The town in the picture below is St. Saturnin-les-Apt a little above Saignon and quite lovely. We drove up the morning after our Lioux adventure and found it a small tucked-away town with the usual long climb up to a nice old cathedral.

Town fountain and bench

I have to go back in my journal and find the name of this little town. I came upon this tiny square or squarelet and was taken by the care given to it's upkeep and the nice touches like the flowers on the fence.

Dog in the window

As I have written previously, people decorate the tiniest windows. This was a wee window in one of our favorite restaurants, Solveig. The owner/chef is an artist in her other life and the little restaurant is hung with her work. She makes art out of found or combined objects and it is all delightful. Her food is lovely simple preparations of whatever is fresh. I recommend highly the salmon brochette that she makes. Fish that melts.....ahhhhh. She also must have painted this window.

Saignon Cafe

Harvey and Carol loved this little place. It had coffee, tea, small cakes and a variety of souvenirs and local crafts. Here they sit with one of their new friends.

Tired but happy

Here are three of us almost back at the car. This was one of the memorable days of the trip. We saw a new place, that was beautiful. We had a good, long, challenging climb/walk and we had a good lunch afterward. That's why we come here.

The walk down

When we reached the other end there was a nice winding road down that afforded a far better view of the cliffs. We were all amazed that we walked them in a few hours. We were tired and hungry, so off we went to secure a nice lunch. Those are Janie and Carol at the bottom of the picture.

The Star

At the end of our walk on the top of the massif, we came upon a large Hebrew star laid out in rocks on the ground. Harvey has a long and involved tale of how it might have come to be. I remain skeptical as there were no loose Harley-Davidson parts laying about.

Two Questions

Question one. Why does a sixtyish dentist go to within a foot of a 300 foot fall?
Question two. Why does a sixtyish, clumsy, retired photographer with a profound dislike of 300 foot falls, get to within a foot of said fall to take a picture?

Carol at the edge

To paraphrase an expression about dogs; There are bold climbers and there are old climbers but there aren't many old, bold climbers. Carol has a bit of mountain goat DNA in her

We made it too!

Carol very kindly took our picture to prove we made it. The sun gained in strength all day and we had to shed a layer or two as the morning wore on. We passed a couple a bit later on, who had climbed up the other end. The woman had shed all of her clothes except her underwear! We didn't resort to that.

View over Lioux

This is one of many spectacular views from this formation that a camera cannot really capture. At the rear of these fields you can see the road we travelled on our way up. The air was so clear that it all seemed closer than it was. The grey rock at the bottom of the picture is the edge of the cliff. I really do not like heights; so this was as close as I could come.

Relaxing at the top

I apologize for the delay. We had a full house over Thanksgiving and I have been lax. This is the top of the massif and Harvey and Carol took a moment to enjoy the view and have a drink of water and an apple before we tackled the hike over the plateau.