DATELINE: Wednesday, Oct. 11. From Vaison southwest to Mausanne and Les Baux (near Avignon), then returning, with many detours each way.
What do you call a day that starts with watching anorexic female models being photographed amid the Roman ruins, then features a hellish drive to a very good lunch, followed by medieval images of Hell projected on the giant inner walls of a former stone quarry? The return trip wasn't as bad as the outbound journey, and it all ended peacefully back in Vaison.
The model shoot was almost below our bedroom windows. Two excessively slim women posed in various states of languor amid statues and columns, while the photographer's minions danced about moving shade panels, flash reflectors, tripods
After they moved to another part of the ruins, we hit the road. The drive went smoothly until we left the A7 superhighway. The trouble began with simple-seeming detours around construction.
Approaching St. Rémy, the traffic seemed to slow and the detours got harder to follow. GPS was having trouble keeping up with the temporary roadwork. A major moment of panic came when we entered the edge of town. A big Mercedes in front of us turned left into what looked like a very narrow alley. Our GPS told us to do likewise.
The Mercedes slammed on its brakes just as we were fully committed to following it. Ahead of it, facing us and filling the road, were at least three large trucks. Looking in my rear-view, I saw another car turn in right behind us. Deadlock.
The oncoming vehicles couldn't (or wouldn't) back up, so it fell to us. The Merc's back-up lights popped on. I checked the rearview again and was delighted to see the car behind us already backing and turning to get out of the way. My next few minutes were tense, as I inched the rental car (which has terrible rear vision and no fancy back-up camera) backward between the scratchy-looking stone walls.
Finally escaping from the 5-way intersection I backed into, we were off on a different route suggested by the GPS voice. Unfortunately, it took us right into the pavement repair project that was the central cause of the whole mess.
We were on another walled-in town road (way too narrow to turn around) intersecting a wider street whose old pavement was being chewed up by a monster machine the sized of a locomotive. We needed to turn left. The car ahead was signaling right. The monster left only one lane open, and there was two-way traffic taking turns in that lane. One harassed-looking guy in a hard hat was directing traffic. We waited for every other string of traffic to pass through the site, some more than once, before finally getting a grudging nod and a finger pointed to the left.
It got a little easier after that, and we found the small restaurant Roz had booked. Parking on its narrow street was tricky, but I'll spare you that. Good lunch, though a bit slow.
Next destination was the planned pinnacle of the day. A huge stone quarry near the rocky medieval stronghold of Les Baux had been turned into the venue for a vast light show. This isn't the open-pit quarry we see in the States, but a huge man-made cave with a few million tons of rock still on top. Several years ago, someone decided to plant a bunch of digital picture projectors high up near its ceiling where they could throw images onto the walls, floors, and visitors.
We first saw it eight years ago, when the images being splashed about were Picasso's paintings. This time, the subject was the work of three late medieval/early Renaissance painters: Dutch artists Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brueghel plus the Italian painter who went by Arcimboldo.
If you're not familiar with these artists, search for them on the web. Weird stuff, huh? So imagine being in a gigantic stone space, underground, with walls at least 60 feet high and intersecting at crazy angles. Fading, blending, and slithering on those walls are images by these three fantasists.
The images overlapped and when cross-fading from one artist to the next we could see Brueghel's drunken peasants dancing with Bosch's devils. Then Arcimboldo's faces made of vegetable produce entered the fray. Loud music ranged from "Carmina Burana", through Led Zeppelin, to a haunting modern soprano.
When we staggered out of the giant cave into natural light (and life), the giant stone shapes seemed about to dance. But they held steady while we found our way out through the poorly marked lanes to level ground and started home.
Though much detouring was involved, the GPS seemed to get an update en route, and we got back to the same entry onto the A7 where we exited before noon. Uneventful drive was followed by a bit of shopping in Vaison's center, then by a very welcome aperitif at our cafe.
It took a while for the day's tension to relax, but we slept well. No monsters or nightmares. We'd seen those already.
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