Beautiful Les Baux-de-Provence

Our view across Dante’s Inferno is all grey-white rock, stunted green pines, sheer drops over a steep precipice (that people lean over, take a look, then step back with a shiver) across to the tiny citadel in stone atop the next hill: Les Baux-en-Provence. We are without a camera still, since ours died. Such intolerable luck. So special all this, Pete would draw it if he had the implements. A bao, for which Les Baux is named, is a rocky spur, and we can see several running high over the remnants of an old Roman road down in the valley that once connected Arles to the east. One spur has a scar of flattened red earth where bauxite was once mined. I am a little surprised at that. I’d have thought the mining company might have been required to restore the land once the mine closed, but apparently not. 

The foothills of Les Alpilles around Les Baux are renowned for white wines and excellent olives. This area has been granted three AOCs (appellations d’origine controllee) and is famous for olives crushed with fennel and the flavours of the Garrigue; also pricked black olives; as well as its olive oils --a green fruit oil with hints of artichoke, wet grass and thyme, and a ripe fruit oil, earthy with the scent of mushroom, truffle and black olives. 

This entire village, another labrinth of stone alleyways and shady terraces, is a soft grey-white, the construction stones likely just plucked from the limestone hills about: and so well maintained: there is little or no discoloration scarring the village aesthetic. We spend an inordinate amount of time in Les Baux, and considering that it is entirely a tourist town, we feel a little guilty. So many of these villages (another of France’s most beautiful) appear staged, solely for tourists.  While the windows are dressed you often sense bare stone rooms behind. While there are boutiques everywhere the produits du terroir for sale in most, might all have come from the same job lot. And while the tourist menus might be written on blackboards, or menus, differently, this assiette du jour looks much like that assiette du jour: little difference. We even suspect at times there might be a communal kitchen somewhere servicing all the various bistros and restaurants in each of these tourist villages.

But, we are drawn to the charming little oddities as we walk this village: a museum exhibiting sandons, little saint-like figurines that adorn cribs and nativity scenes displayed at Christmas. Some of these are among the earliest sandons ever made: from the 17th century. Most, though, are later. Some are of clay, some of papier mache, some with glass suphur eyes, some painted, some created and dressed by the Carmelite nuns at Avignon, some sculpted by famous French sandon makers. There is something whimsical and charming about each of them. 

We discover a plaque in the church says Les Baux was granted to the Grimaldis of Monaco in the 17th century for favours due. I don’t think it means much, though, as Les Baux appears to be run by France, but Caroline evidently sometimes uses the title of Marquise des Baux, which technically she shouldn’t, as that title lapsed with the last of the direct male descendants, her grandfather; also, it was a title for heirs to the throne, which she is not, so this is a little piece of princess conceit, perhaps. 

No one, though, can stage the amazing site, or the history of the castle, and this is where we spent so much of our time. Besotted. This is probably my favourite French medieval castle site, to date. My passion for it has as much to do with the perfection of the site as a strategic fortress, high above this metaphorical inferno, as it has to do with the excellence of the commentary we are given on our audioguide. 

The French do historical site guides (with individual audioguides in umpteen different languages) better than anyone, I think. If they also provided detailed printouts of these guides at major historical sites that would be perfect, but my guess is they might end up being the size of a small book, and the cost would likely be prohibitive. The Les Baux commentary, like elsewhere, has three levels: the first is for those on short tours, you simply press the button at the main audio marker points and you are presented with an excellent summary at an introductory level, which might take less than an hour to hear, which is all most of the bus tours seem to allow as a stopover at many sites. The second level is for those who want a little better value for money given the entrance fee: a deeper layer of detail again. The third level is for addicts: this depth can keep you enthralled for as much time as you are willing to give. All up, there is more information stored than most tourists can capably digest. But the detail is delicious. I can rarely resist any of it and I am often dragged away, wanting just a little longer, promising to come back. 

Along with the glorious history of a group of lords and ladies of Les Baux, we are introduced to m’lady’s salles in the keep and the pretty vaulted stone chapel, with intricate commentary on wall hangings and floor coverings. Workmen are pruning borders of clumped fresh lavender in the bailey and in days of yore, these fragrant cut leaves and lavender flower heads would be thrown like a soft fresh carpet on the stone floor to perfume my lady’s boudoir. 

The audioguide offers rich detail of the life of the castle, the function of the bailey, village life in and out of the castle grounds, the military history, and an excellent coverage of the copies of medieval warfare siege engines onsite. We see performers in medieval dress demonstrating the various catapults including the trebuchet and the couillard. During battle, women often primed these war machines, loading them with their heavy rock missiles, pulling on the ropes needed to project the stones, rather clumsily over the crenelations, attempting to lay the enemy low. The men usually manned the heavier battering ram, often equipped with an iron ram’s head shaped into a destructive projectile, vicious enough to batter down the base of even the best walls in town. This great length of battering pole was usually covered with a wooden A-framed roof pinned with an insulating coating of animal skins. The skins and roof offered a thin layer of protection for the men beneath it against the barrage of burning projectiles raining down on them from the castle guards above, attempting to protect the ramparts. A remarkable historical site: we loved it.

Les Baux de Provence

Catapults for demonstrating war games at Les Baux

As in the days of yore