Mapping the path

PROVENCE TO PARIS

Arrival in Provence

We land in Marseille and drive a possessed rental car to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a beautiful old town with connections to Clovis I, Nostradamus, and Vincent Van Gogh.

Our connecting flight from Paris descended from a cloudless sky, coasting easily over the farms, forests, and villages of southern France. It had been a long journey, starting 20 hours earlier in San Francisco. But now, it was starting to feel like a vacation.

We passed over Étang de Berre (Berre Pond), a lake with a short canal leading to the Mediterranean. The plane banked and landed on an airstrip extending over the lake at Marseilles Provence Airport, about 15 minutes northwest of its namesake city.

Marianne and I made our way through customs to the Europcar rental building just outside the terminal. As we entered, a customer stepped up to the two-person counter, making us next in line. And there. We. Waited.

The car rental process should be relatively simple: present identification and a credit card, ignore the insurance upsell, sign a form, and get your keys. But here at Europcar, there seemed to be countless additional steps. Wait, is that guy taking a test? Are they making him write an essay describing his anticipated driving adventures? One of the customers asked detailed questions about alternative cars, potentially mistaking Europcar for a dealership. The other customers provided an invalid credit card. Phone calls were made. Numbers were relayed. A manager intervened. And time continued its relentless progress without us.

We watched fellow travelers stack up in the line, now extending out the door. They may still be in line today.

Eventually, our name was called, I signed our forms, and we found our small SUV in the parking lot. We loaded up our luggage and started the car. A rear wiper had been left on by the car’s last driver, and it thwip-thwipped in the back as I searched the unfamiliar console for the switch to turn it off. Thwip-thwip, thwip-thwip.

I found the switch and flipped it. Thwip-thwip, thwip-thwip. Apparently, I had not found the switch. I searched around for other switches, trying them all. Thwip-thwip, thwip-thwip. No luck. I engaged Marianne in the effort, and she too tried all the switches. Thwip-thwip, thwip-thwip. I backed the car out and drove to the Europcar building, but there were no attendants in sight. Thwip-thwip, thwip-thwip.

I tried the Hertz lot next door. The employees there quickly approached and tried to explain, in French, that I was in the wrong place, while I tried to explain, in English, that I had a car with a possessed wiper and no way to stop it. Thwip-thwip, thwip-thwip. We got there eventually. Hertz had the same model in their lot, and one employee tried the switch I had tried with the same lack of result. He gave me a wordless Gallic shrug. Thwip-thwip, thwip thwip.

We drove off, turning up the music to drown out the persistent rumble of dry rubber dragging across glass.

But our spirits remained high. We were driving in Provence, free to explore one of the most celebrated regions in the world. Everything felt novel and new as we turned west onto the tree-lined Route d’Aix-en-Provence to our base for the next four days in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

We had booked a hotel called Les Ormes en Provence on the ring around the old town, across from a city parking lot. I had been told to go inside the restaurant below our room to get instructions for parking. When we arrived in Saint-Rémy, I understood why: A large carnival covered the parking lot and several surrounding streets, part of a five-day annual celebration called Les Fêtes Votives, in honor of the city’s patron saint. The disorientation of a new place and a foreign language intensified with blocked roads defying our GPS and the dissonance of an ancient French town bedecked in the trappings of a county fair.

We negotiated the logistics of parking and getting to our room, a comfortably sized accommodation overlooking the bustle. Then we headed out to dinner on the other side of the town center.

Saint-Rémy is named for Remigius, the 5th-century Bishop of Reims known as the “apostle of the Franks" for baptizing Frankish King Clovis I on December 25, 496. Clovis’ army had just repelled the invading Alemanni, turning a key battle from near defeat into a surprising and decisive victory. The king took the events as a divine signal and sought baptism immediately. Remigius followed the king’s conversion by baptizing thousands of men in Clovis’ army.

Saint-Rémy was the birthplace of French astrologer, physician, apothecary, and “seer” Nostradamus. Born in 1503 in the old town center — just a two-minute walk from our hotel — Nostradamus vaulted into everlasting fame in 1550 through the publication of his first almanac, filled with predictions and prophesies. The book’s instant success led to many more editions totaling more than 6,000 predictions.

One of these books, published in 1555, caught the attention of French Queen Catherine de’ Medici because it contained vague predictions of threats to the royal family. Nostradamus traveled to Paris and won the queen over, creating horoscopes for her children and eventually becoming a counselor and physician to her son, the future King Charles IX.

Vincent van Gogh came to Saint-Rémy in May 1889, committing himself to the Saint-Paul de Mausole psychiatric hospital south of town after cutting off his earlobe in Arles. He stayed for a year, creating an astonishing 95 paintings that include some of his most iconic works, such as The Starry Night and The Irises.

We had dinner at L’Aile ou la Cuisse, a well-rated spot specializing in Provençal dishes. As we chatted with a German couple seated next to us, we enjoyed a creative and bountiful Caesar salad, followed by Asian-style pork ribs cooked for five hours, taken apart tableside with spoons, and served over Thai rice flavored with ginger. All of this with lychee iced tea — an excellent culinary kickoff.

After dinner, we walked back through the town center, which was eerily quiet on this Sunday evening.

Back at our hotel, there was plenty of noise and light from the carnival on our street, but here too things were quieting down. We took our queue and went up to the room for some rest before our first day of sightseeing.

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