Our fifth day in France, we traveled west in Provence to the villages of Les Baux and St. Remy. The plane trees line the old roads between the farmland and the villages, and make the countryside charming and inviting.
Les Baux is both a castle built into a high limestone outcropping and a village nestled at it foot. No longer much of a living city, these castle ruins and village streets are now full of shops and cafes, and history. We started with a quick lunch in the village, then climbed into and around the castle ruins.
The lords of Les Baux controlled the high ground on the trade route between Aix-en-Provence and Avingnon, and built the formidable castle as their stronghold. The castle met it formal end, however, in 1632, when a brother to King Louis the 13th decided to side with the protestants and make his stand at Les Baux. After starving the castle and the village for some 22 days, the Kings troops won the day with a volley of cannon fire from some of the nearby Alpilles, and ended the revolt. So this was yet another site of Reformation sacrifice.
We then wandered through the lovely, medieval village, complete with renaissance glass windows, and plenty of "old stones".
As the evening descended, we drove on to the village of St. Remy, wandered those venerable old streets, and finished our day at a lovely little creperie, where we enjoyed the traditional combo of crepes sallee (savory) and sucre (sweet), accompanied by sweet hard apple cider. Another wonderful day!
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