Monthly Archives June 2019

Every time I come to Paris, it’s different. More approachable. Friendlier. Is it because I have more money? It’s like New York in that way. Manhattan felt untenable in my 20’s: hard to traverse, too expensive, too old. Paris was worse. And now, for the most part, my interactions are patient and connected.  The people seem happy. Their English is better than where I live in Germany, and the French language easier to get my hands around than German. As long as we avoid the main sights during tourist hours, it’s so livable that I forget that it’s Paris. I like how it feels here. …

Oppéde is a somewhat modern French town close to the villa. It’s less beautiful than the other impossibly beautiful small towns in the area (Gordes, Ménerbes, Roussillon), probably because it is more recent. A run-off of people who descended from the hillside after “Old Oppéde” began to dissolve a hundred years ago. We start off early and hike up the hillside into Old Oppéde, knowing that it is a “ghost town”, but little else. What I discover is probably the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It’s not actually a ghost town, but it was at one time, and what does remain is mostly ruins. The only homes that …

I get to the villa in the Luberon region of Provence late on Monday after a horrific crisscrossing of Germany, Belgium and France. France is once again one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. In the past it has been Paris (obviously) and rural Bordeaux. Now it is the small villages stretching east of Avignon. The compound is built around a vineyard outside of Oppéde, below the ghost town of “Old Oppéde” that sits visible in the hillside. And what strikes me beyond even the undisputable beauty, is how little I have to say about it. It’s not because I find it uninspiring. I just can’t believe …