The Provençal village of Le Thoronet
Sunday 11 June – a few hours’ drive into the countryside and we arrived at the lovely home of Anne and Richard, friends of Geoff’s, who are kindly hosting us for a few days. Their home is in Le Thoronet and is nestled amongst the vineyards, pine and olive trees around the Argens valley and the hills of Recoux and Bresque. The perfect arrival, we were greeted with a glass of cold champagne and an invitation to jump into their swimming pool!!!! Evening drinks and a delicious home-cooked Provençal dinner – Anne did us proud – we spent the evening on their terrace partaking of some delicious wines and more champagne, followed by a bit of a dance-a-thon before turning in for the night.
Monday 12 June – breakfast on the terrace and then after a relaxing morning, we were off to Château de Berne for lunch. The
Château has three restaurants which offer sustainable and organic gastronomy and the estate has three vegetable gardens, berries, fruits, aromatic plants and flowers spread over 3000 m², all grown organically. Cattle, sheep and goats are also raised on eco-grazing We had lunch in their Jardin de Berne restaurant which has been awarded a green star for its sustainable gastronomy, only 88 establishments have received this distinction in France. Last year they were also been labelled a “bee-friendly” domain as they have recognised the important role of bees and pollinating insects for agriculture and biodiversity. We had the most delicious lunch accompanied by wines from the Château in this beautiful setting, followed by a walk around their gardens and a visit to their shop where we stocked up on a few bottles for later! (have a look at the photo of me below with my “eyes on the prize”!)
You wouldn’t believe it but we started to feel a little hungry later on so back out to enjoy some more local food – this time at a very friendly local village café, L’entre Deux, where I had the tastiest Provençal salad with an accompanying bowl of gazpacho soup. You have to hand it to the French, they certainly know how to cook – from top restaurants to local cafés!
Tuesday 13 June – Geoff and I went off to explore this morning and visited Thoronet Abbey, a former Cistercian Abbey built in the late 12th century. In 1136 a group of monks left Mazan Abbey in the Ardèche to found a monastery which they built 15 years later in this beautiful place. It took 70 years to build and was home to around 20 monks and around 20 lay brothers (who did the manual work). We couldn’t get over the work that had been undertaken –the incredible architecture, the hewn stone and all of this with very basic tools and implements. It was pretty awesome. Beautiful grounds with trees and flowers, punctuated with the odd water fountain, it was a very peaceful setting.
Another delicious lunch followed, this time at Chez Bruno’s Restaurant in Lorgues. In the traditional old family stone farmhouse that was the home of his great-grandmother Mariette, Clémont Bruno established his renowned restaurant which offers several truffle set menus, these include summer truffles, tuber aestivum, which are less intense and paler and harvested from May to August and black truffles, tuber melanosporum which are harvested over the winter months. I lost count of the courses we had, all very delicate, and all including truffles, there was even a course with just Noirmoutier potato with a creamy truffle sauce. This potato is cultivated on the island of the same name off the north-west coast of France and it’s fields are fertilized with seaweed which gives the potato a special earthy, salty flavour which matches that of the truffles. There was even a truffle dessert.
Certainly no dinner required, we sat on the terrace and had a very convivial night, some nice wines, good conversation, and in the background, the spotify playlist I have on my i-phone of many of the recordings that my Dad features on.
Wednesday 14 June – and we’re off. We have done so much travelling and the itinerary has been very complicated with trains, ferries, hotels, rental cars etc., and somehow we thought we were leaving for Milan on the train today, but actually it is tomorrow (this turned out to be to our advantage as Milan closed down today for the ex-President, Silvio Berlusconi’s, state funeral which we found out to be around the corner from our Air BnB). No problem, we will find somewhere else between Le Thoronet to stay tonight – another adventure perhaps!
