For an important birthday, I persuaded my husband to take me to Provence. I had never been to Southern France, while my husband’s family on his father’s side hails from the tiny village of Courbessac near Nîmes.
I consulted a favorite coffee table book The Most Beautiful Villages of Provence, and that is how we decided to make our base at Fox-Amphoux in the Département du Var.
Fox-Amphoux is a charming village perché, meaning that it is literally perched on a rocky outcrop, often fortified and dates from the Middle Ages. From there, we visited The Promenade des Anglais in Nice, popular with British tourists in the 19th century, the Chateau d’Entrecasteaux, where Madame du Sévigné’s daughter lived (she was the recipient of most of her mother’s letters about court gossip) and Grasse, the Perfume Capital.
Everything was going wonderfully well, until we visited the Palais des Papes in Avignon – the seat of the Catholic Church during the 14th century – where I had a very strange turn.
Perhaps it was the description of the feasts held there during the elections of various popes. At one such feast, 96 thousand eggs were used to prepare the food. Now, as everyone who knows me well realizes, I have a sensitive stomach. If anyone is going to feel queasy, it will be me. But it was more than the stomach-churning amount of food. For it suddenly occurred to me that while all these men were celebrating the elevation of the new pope, everyone else outside this gilded cage of a palace was malnourished, half-starving, not getting enough to eat.
And suddenly, I needed to leave.
I don’t know how to explain this other than to say that the dark recesses of this palace, it gold bars hidden in boxes under the floor, its too-obvious power, oozed evil. I couldn’t leave fast enough, my bewildered husband running after me and asking what was the matter.
Once I’d calmed down and explained, he understood what I meant. But I don’t think I will be visiting that Papal Palace at Avignon ever again.
