Travels - Moustiers

Pictures are now up on the Travels page from last weekend.

We took a day-trip with the school to Moustiers-Ste-Marie, a "traditional" Provence town. We stopped first for an hour at the small town of Verdon where there were a couple small food stores open and a large market selling all types of produce, cheese, meats, breads, shoes, sunglasses, clothes, soaps, cooking utensils, and even a woman selling Pans as if she were on a TV infomercial ("And just look at how perfectly this crepe slides out!"). We picked up lunch since Yamina claimed there wouldn't be anything to eat in Moustiers and then got back on the bus for another hour and a half.

Now Moustiers is a traditional town in the sense that when it was built, the construction and layout were typical of Provencal villages - built in an amphitheatre at the base of the mountains with a waterfall and streams nearby, overlooking the fields. It has tiny, narrow streets with the church at the town center and another chapel high above. It has its legend of the star that hangs from the iron chain nearly 750 ft above ground dating back to the Crusades. It's known for all the artisan shops that make and sell the traditional Faience pottery (very French country style white glazed ceramics with little blue, handpainted designs). But personally I don't think you can call Moustiers traditional anymore because it's become such a tourist town. There were a few restaurants open, but they didn't have outside seating - very un-French. And I'm not sure I actually heard anyone who wasn't a shop owner speaking French amongst themselves... lots of German and Italian though.

Anyway, I was feeling exhausted, having not gotten much sleep the night before after staying out with friends and then losing an hour to daylight savings time so I opted not to hike up to the chapel, prefering instead to sit in the church square and watch some friends throw a football around. I did make it to every pottery shop that was open (I typically buy one small piece of a particular shape on every trip) but didn't find what I was looking for.

After leaving Moustiers, we took a winding path up the mountain which, in the tour bus, was almost as bad as driving along the cliffs in Ireland - almost, but not quite. We drove along the Gorge du Verdon, otherwise known as the Grand Canyon of France and I believe it's the biggest canyon in Europe. It's 13.5 miles long and 2300 ft deep and though very impressive, doesn't come close to the real thing if you ask me. We stopped at an open area where the bus could park to get out and take pictures, then headed back down the way we came and went home. All in all, a relaxing day in the country.