The air was crisp, below freezing on the slopes, but the light beautiful, and so serene. I didn't see another walker all day.
Malaucène doesn't boast the same jaw-dropping scenery as some of the villages in the Luberon, but it remains authentic, picturesque, quaint. Dilapidated façades, real cafés where yesterday the locals were smoking indoors, older men playing cards and chess, women wrapped in winter gear buying produce at the market (yesterday was Wednesday, the village market day). No fancy cars, and no cameras... except mine...
The camera wasn't working during the hike itself, which took me up to the chapel Saint Sidoine on the northern slopes of the mountain. Ventoux is an isolated mountain, and you need only climb 200-300m before the views are wide sweeping. Perched above a jagged cliff, the chapel became my short sandwich break before the steep slopes led me back down to the plains.
The plains are carpeted with cherry orchards, vines, truffle oak plantations, and framing a few sleepy hamlets. Below is a lone persimmon tree. It took a while to find a ripe one that hadn't rotted, but it was the sweetest thing I'd eaten in a long time.
The truffle oak below sits on a clearly parched surface, where there is no vegetation. it's a clue that there are truffles below. The truffle is a very finicky mushroom, and isn't keen to grow amid other vegetation. In fact, it'll send up a toxic substance that kills the vegetation at the surface of the tree, hence the clue.
No comments:
Post a Comment