Gordes

Day 4 - Gordes
(Already two months later - I'm making this holiday last a long time.)

We visited Gordes from Goult. It was beautiful, but also not quite what I expected. There was little sense there of a living town - and it appears that much of it was in ruins until artists began to move in in the 1950s and rebuild. Now it seems to be largely a tourist town - busloads of them (us) each day, and all the businesses in the town dedicated to feeding them and selling them lavender-coloured teddy bears and soap. Or art - we did visit a small exhibition of sculptures by an artist called Alice Morlon: flattened crowds of horses and riders made of wire and mesh, looking like Celtic hunters, and strange parchment-winged angels like giant insects.

As we viewed the town from the edge - at the scenic point from which everyone stops to view it - my attention was caught by a French guide talking to her elderly American charges as if they were recalcitrant children. "Could you... just listen, because I'm not going to repeat this." Then as she told them things about the town - for instance, how expensive the houses were now - a particular lady would immediately ask the obvious questions - "So how much would a house like that be now?" The guide would respond in a voice of barely concealed irritation, "I'm just going to tell you that." What a painful trip that must have been for all involved. It seemed an odd failure of communication, too. I suspect the American lady was doing her best in her very American way to show that she was listening and to show her interest to a guide she knew was easily ruffled; while for the French guide it simply came across as impatience and ignorance. She was clearly in the wrong career.

Apart from the exhibition, the most interesting thing we did in Gordes was to visit the Caves du Palais Saint Firmin - in essence an exhibition about life and industry underground in this town. It's comprised of only a couple of vaulted rooms and their side chambers, but it was informative - lots about olive oil processing that I knew nothing about, and before that a short film that gives the history of the town. Also, there was no-one else there, and it felt special to be underground while all those busloads of people tramped around over our heads.

When we left Gordes, we went back to Goult, drove up to the windmill at the top and then picked up some supplies in a shop in the village for dinner.

Then we went back to the hotel where I had a quick swim and an evening walk.