A Year in Provence (Vintage Departures)

I had stopped at a fork in the road. Chance made me turn right instead of left, and two minutes later I arrived in the miniature village of Saint Martin de la Brasque. It was a sight to restore one’s faith in shortcuts. There was a tiny square; the houses on it had their windows shuttered against the heat. Tables and chairs were set out in the shad

I remember Coustellet market twenty years ago, when there were no more than ten or twelve small vans in the village parking area. You could buy local vegetables and fruit, some goat cheese, half a dozen eggs, and that was about it. Today, the market has grown until it covers nearly an acre, and in high season it’s packed every Sunday morning.

By eleven o’clock the market was over. Many of the truffles that had been bought were already on trains, racing against further evaporation as they left Provence for Paris; or, in some cases, for the Dordogne, where they would be presented as natives of the Périgord. Truffles from this region are considered to be superior—like Cavaillon melons or N

Drive on, past l’Observatoire de Haute Provence, where they say you can breathe the clearest, purest air in France, and head for the foothills of the Montagne de Lure. There, set in a bowl of lavender fields, you will find Lardiers, a village of perhaps a hundred inhabitants. Their houses are bunched around the Mairie and the Café de la Lavande—the