Earlier this week I
took a guidebook to Provence
out of the library. On the cover is a picture of a field of golden sunflowers. It
set me thinking.
Sunflowers are so
often used to epitomise Provence.
You see them on pottery & tablecloths in the area.
Yet when I think of
sunflowers I think of two places, both far from Provence. The first is a hill overlooking
the confluence of the Vienne & the Loire,
&, for that matter, Chinon. When we drove up to the top, we found fields of
sunflowers drying in the sun ready to be harvested for their oil.
The other place I
think of is Gouda in the Netherlands. I
remember sitting in the market place one market day watching the world go by. Among
other stalls there was a flower stall. So many people seemed to be buying
sunflowers. I couldn’t help thinking they are such huge flowers to use to
decorate the home but they were undoubtedly popular.
No, the flower I associate
with Provence
is lavender. One holiday we stayed in the foothills of Mont Ventoux, near Carpentras. One day we
drove over to Sault. We passed field after field of lavender. All the postcards
seem to be dominated by their blue-purple flowers, even though when we were
there they were not yet in flower. Sault is the central collecting point for
the lavender collected to subsequently be sent to Grasse to be turned into fine perfumes.
The other flower I
associate with the region is the purple iris. They were in flower at the time
of that holiday & seemed to be ubiquitous. That was the time I grew to
appreciate Van Gogh’s painting of irises. (An aside: I wonder if the Van Gogh
painting of sunflowers that make them so popular in the Netherlands? Or
is it just some shared attraction to them?)
Maybe it is just a
reflection of when we have visited Provence.
It has always been in the spring whereas the Loire & the Netherlands we have
visited in late August/early September when sunflowers would be more prominent.
For me Provence is about
lavender & olives, but maybe I will come back from this holiday with a
different image.
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