A Must See Exhibition in Arles: "Cesar, Le Rhone Pour Memoire"

Even if you're nowhere near Arles - make a point of getting there to see this exceptional exhibition. It's on almost all year (till 19th September) and is fantastic.

A marble bust of Caesar, made in his lifetime, is the centrepiece of around 700 Roman artefacts objects pulled out of the Rhone (and the Mediterranean) by the lovely old city of Arles during 20 long years of underwater excavations. Imagine working in the murky waters of the Rhone, oxygen tanks and flippers on, spotting Roman remains in the weed and the gloom. Here a statue of Neptune, there a bust of Caesar.

That's what I call having a job...

During the long underwater dig, the archaeologists worked in some pretty testing conditions in the wide, fast-flowing river and the coastal waters of the Bouches-du-Rhone. The exhibition has several short films showing these expert divers at work as they find, clean, lift and record these priceless works. (Interested in archaeology?: The World Encyclopedia of Archaeology: The World's Most Significant Sites and Cultural Treasures )

It was in 2007, when the divers were getting ready to stop the excavations, that they spotted a number of stone fragments. They turned out to be a cache of Roman stones from friezes and mausoleums. As the find was examined, the dirty, stained marble bust of Caesar was identified and is without doubt the main treasure hauled out of the Rhone to date. (For more on Caesar,click here Caesar: Life of a Colossus .)

Identified, dated, cleaned and carefully restored by archaeological experts, the work is in amazingly good condition, with just a little cut on the nose.

Exhibition designer, Pierre Berthier, has produced a really spectacular display showing the process of discovery and recovery as well as the works themselves. The restoration work, and the task of confirming that the bust really is of Caesar were filmed so that visitors to the museum can see it being de-silted, cleaned, dated and then analysed to match its lines and proportions with an already-identified bust of Caesar kept in Italy.

The exhibition, seen along with the museum’s tremendous permanent collection, vividly shows how Rome’s wealth and power was felt in ancient Arles. Arles in antiquity was a crucial staging post in the movement of goods in the Roman empire. Its busy port saw cargo arriving from and setting off to points all over Europe, Africa and the Orient: The Roman Remains of Southern France: A Guide Book

The Rhone excavations came up with the remains of fifteen shipwrecks, including fine jewellery, hardy kitchen utensils, weighing scales, tools, iron and lead ingots, shoes, little toys and statuettes. Dozens of huge stone amphorae once contained wine, oil and fish sauce. Heavy stone sarcophagi were found along with a great statue of Neptune and a tethered male slave.

But the focal point is undoubtedly Caesar. Standing in a dimly-lit room, rescued from the dark currents, silt and weed of the river, it projects a spine-tingling sense of antiquity. His face is somehow very contemporary. Its features are strong and well-defined; the expression is grave.

Experts believe it was sculpted from life in 46BC, which means it reflects Caesar’s standing and power just two years before he was killed.

This wonderful exhibition runs until September 2010 and then the exhibits will become part of the museum’s permanent collection.

Luc Long, head of archaeological, subaquatic and deep sea research in France, is the exhibition's organiser. He says: "We made new and very beautiful discoveries in 2009 which leave us thinking that we haven’t come to the end of the reserves that this great natural museum - the Rhone river - still holds".

Which means we may get to see other exceptional exhibitions in this fine Provencal museum in the not-too-distant future.

Click here for details of opening hours and access to the Musee Departemental Arles Antique.

For more detail on Arles click here.

And the winner, for the 5th year running, is - France

Here’s some unsurprising news. France has just been judged as the best country in the world in which to live, by website 'International Living'.

For the fifth year running, France topped the annual index of countries ranked by quality of life. The USA was ranked seventh. And poor old Britain, beleaguered by fear of terrorism, by crime, recession, binge drinking and ‘celebrities’, languishes down in 25th place. (Behind - ahem - Hungary, Uruguay, and Lithuania. And only slightly ahead of Slovenia, Argentina and Ecuador.)

The International Living (IL) Index ranks 194 countries for overall quality of life, using wide-ranging financial, social and other criteria. Security, income, spending power, political freedom, climate, leisure, culture, environment, healthcare and infrastructure are all taken into account.

The top ten countries for 2010 were:

France, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand, Luxembourg, the USA, Belgium, Canada, Italy.

No wonder beautiful France was found to be the best country overall. The IL Index may measure objective criteria but there's an awful lot about France that’s easy to feel but a bit harder to define. The beauty of Paris all year round; the tranquility of the countryside; the olive groves and vineyards; markets brimming with locally-grown fruit and vegetables; the freshly-baked baguettes and pain de campagne handed to you by your charming local baker; the glittering stone fountains heavy with moss in medieval village squares.

And everywhere you feel the care, the tradition and the wisdom that’s put into daily life - raising a family, preparing a lunch, pruning an olive tree or organizing a strawberry festival in a tiny place such as my nearest village, Velleron. Click here for: The Most Beautiful Villages of Provence

The bureaucracy and taxes that make people groan in France are nothing really compared with the wonderful quality of life. Bureaucrats are often surprisingly helpful when you need advice. And the taxes fund the best national health care in the world.

What the French have above all is a huge understanding of the art de vivre. They created it after all. They're also thoughtful and intelligent caretakers of a fabulous country full of old stone houses shaded by beautiful platanes; ubiquitous canals and sparkling fountains that work in harmony with great rivers like the Rhone and Durance; pretty countryside tracks leading into forest and garrigue filled with mushrooms and herbs; outdoor markets providing olive oil, honey, almonds, goats cheese, wild boar sausages, figs, fennel, artichokes, purple garlic, endives, wine...

There are mountains, rolling countryside, forests, lakes, the wetlands of the Camargue, vineyards, olive groves, the long Atlantic coast, the glamour of the Cote d'Azur, medieval hilltop villages, beautiful market towns.

No wonder the French are, in the main, so cheerful and so charming.

For people thinking of moving to a new country, the IL Index provides a great snapshot of the quality of life you can expect to find around the world. If income is your thing and you don’t much care about political freedoms, you’ll find a place to suit you. (Try Bahrain or Saudi Arabia…) For political freedoms and hang the cost, try Tuvalu. But if you want to live in a country which has unrivalled natural beauty, a mostly wonderful built environment, a great philosophy based on democratic freedoms and the art de vivre, and the world’s best cuisine – it has to be France.

France Telecom, oh France Telecom

Living in a forest on a dirt track communications are quite important. In October I bought a Livebox so I could have wifi internet access around the property and a cordless phone. For five years I'd had ADSL that worked reasonably well though it always went off for a day or two after heavy rain or a storm.

The day after I got the internet and phone working with the Livebox, the red light came on. No access. No phone either. Just a blip, I thought. France Telecom will sort if out quickly. Called them. They tested the line. "No problem with the line. It's a problem for Orange." Called Orange. Answered a few questions. "No problem at our end. It's a problem for France Telecom." Called France Telecom. Same response. Called Orange again. Same response. Finally France Telecom agreed to send a team of technicians. The team turned out to be two subcontracted youngsters from Cavaillon, in a hired van, who couldn't even look at the line because they didn't 'have a ladder'. They went away. Other teams of 'technicians' followed. All subcontractors. All young. None brought ladders and ladders were apparently the key to restoring the serivce. There were teams who couldn't find the house. (SatNav anyone?) And teams who refused to go onto a neighbour's property where the FT box is sited, even though the neighbours were fine about it.

Finally, seven teams were sent over 5 weeks. 14 'technicians'. In all that time I had no phone and no internet access. I wrote to the National Consumer Service three times. No reply. Not even an acknowledgement of the letters. On the other hand, FT still managed to collect my monthly fee for the non-existant service efficiently.

When the service was finally restored - and I imagine shareholders paid for the seven completely ineffective, wasted visits - I felt reasonably reassured.

Not for long.

A neighbour this week pointed out to me that the 'repair' to the line was this: the young 'technicians' have draped a line across a neighbour's grounds, all the way over the lawn, through the cherry orchard and up on to the dirt track, draped in hawthorn hedge, before connecting it to the telephone pole.

It's just a loose wire lying on the ground.

Sigh.

I'm not alone round here with this problem. Two friends and neighbours have been offline for three and four months respectively and nothing seems to be happening to restore the service they are paying for. There is clearly something very wrong at France Telecom. The workers are unhappy. Suicides are bizarrely common. Maintenance and repair is being farmed out to younsgters who seem to have little training and no interest in providing a service. Seemed to me that each time they would come out here and go away saying they didn't have a ladder they were probably billing France Telecom on multiple occasions with some nonsense about not having the tools for a complex repair. I don't get the impression that FT checks what the subcontractors are up to.

I'll now have to fight again to get the line properly secured between the poles and the house, before a wild boar stumbles into it and disconnects me again.

France Telecom may need to rename itself France NotTelecom.

March 2010 update. The line is still lying on the neighbour's lawn, months later. I've written and called FT. Received one strange message left on the answerphone which in translation appeared to say: "The arc bobs against a god." Unless it was code meant for a spy I can't possibly imagine what they were trying to communicate. FranceTelecommunications are clearly not communications capable of, you know, communicating.

How to make your own olive oil

Each year here we get our olive oil just before Christmas. I have around 30 trees – not many, but a well-maintained olive tree can provide many kilos of olives every winter. Some of my trees are rehabilitated ones, survivors of the desperate frost in 1956 that killed olive trees right across this region. Others are young trees that I had planted three years ago. As my crop is small for the time being I add it to the more substantial recolte collected by my neighbours. Their trees are on land which spans 16 hectares and though much of that land is taken up by homes, pools, a disused quarry, fig trees, a mielerie (honey factory), flowering plants, shrubs and other varieties of tree, they’ve produced around 1000 kilos of olives this year. ( 2009).

Last week we took the crop, in overflowing cases in a rickety old trailer, to the olive mill at Mazan. It’s a modern mill, a bit disappointing with its inox equipment everywhere instead of heavy old wooden presses – but the owners are charming and loaded the olives into crates, ready to roll off into the torrential bac à lavage where leaves, any bits of grass, soil, snails, mushrooms or bits of fertilizer (horse manure mixed with straw since you ask) are washed away. If you have only a few kilos, your olives are put in a general pool and you receive oil which doesn’t come from your own production. Because we had a good weight we get back oil which is exclusively from our own trees. We went back at the weekend to collect 190 litres of fresh green oil, poured into large containers, and dash home to taste it.

My neighbour tasted it directly from a teaspoon – one spoonful of the new oil, then one of last year’s. I tasted it with a hunk of plain white bread. Compared with last year’s, it’s peppery. The 2008 vintage was very soft, and golden in colour. 2009’s oil is citrus-y green for the moment. It will soften with age. Olive oil is best used within a year. Any longer than that and it’s going to spoil and become rancid.

Now we have the oil some will be stored and used throughout 2010, some will be given away as Christmas presents and some will be sold by the neighbours.

It’s the fruit of some hard labour and this is what we do each year to have our own oil:

Each spring we prune the trees. Pruning olive trees is relatively complex and I’m still getting the hang of it. Some people here do their pruning in November or December when they collect the olives. That’s not good practice though as it can be bad for the tree – letting disease in to the cut areas - and it’s also bad for production. We prune as the weather gets warmer, before the flowers arrive on the branches. The most commonly grown variety here is the verdale, or aglandou, which is seen as the traditional olive tree of Provence - but the salonenque, berruguette and grossane are not uncommon. We have mainly verdales but the oil can be a bit bitter so we temper it with a small percentage of olives from trees of the other varieties.

People are often confused about the colour of olives, asking if my olives are black or green? The answer is that they’re both. A black, bluish-black, dark red or purple olive is just one which is more mature than a green olive. Another common misunderstanding concerns the ramassage, the harvesting of olives. People tend to be surprised that it’s done in November or December, and sometimes – depending on the weather - in January. But that’s when they ripen. And in fact, the combination of timing and weather has a big effect on the quantity of oil generated. If the olives are picked too early, during warm autumn weather, they’ll produce less oil per kilo because their flesh holds too much water. After the first frosts, they dry out a bit and get a little wrinkled in appearance. It’s the cold that begins to dry them out, and in consequence you pay the mill less per kilo for the pressing. All that has been lost is water, not oil. As we currently pay the mill 50 centimes for each kilo they press for us, it makes sense to wait as long as possible before harvesting. On the other hand, picking olives outside all day when it’s freezing cold is pretty unpleasant. This year we got them in during December, but before the weather got cold. Up in the trees on special 3-cornered ladders, looking out at the Alpilles or up at the clear blue sky, and stopping for long lunches in the sunny open air was a pleasure.

We picked by hand and using rateaus, small ‘rakes’, but watched a bit enviously as a neighbour used his newly-acquired machine that shakes the olives from the branches and into the nets. He was able to work several times faster than we were, even though the machine was a bit too powerful and whipped a lot of his olives off into the grass, wide of the nets. Next winter, he’ll buy bigger nets and so will we, learning from his experience, if we decide to buy a machine.

Each time a tree was completely stripped of olives, we’d gather the net in, sort roughly through the olives throwing out leaves and twigs and then pour them into cases ready to be stacked in the vault till the harvest was done. At the end of each day the cases were loaded onto the tractor and off they trundled to be stored.

Each winter we enjoy comparing the year’s new oil with oil produced by neighbours and friends at St Remy de Provence, in the tiny but renowned oil-producing area, Les Baux. The variations in taste and texture are always interesting and often just as marked as the differences between certain whiskies or wines. The taste can have elements of artichoke or asparagus. Some are very fruity; others are spicy and almost hot. Some are smooth and velvety; others deliver a bit of a kick to the throat after a few moments. We also always compare oils from the previous year with the new oil.

Our oil is non-traitée – no commercial products are used on or around the trees. No chemical fertilizers or treatments for maladies. The trees – touch wood (sorry…) – are generally very healthy. Apart from regular watering in summer, all we give them is horse-manure mixed with straw which we collect in the trailer from a friend who has healthy, weff-fed horses. If anyone thinks aaah, that’s nice organic practice, I feel obliged to mention that it means we sometimes see an occasional worm inside an olive... If you collect hundreds of kilos of olives untreated by pesticides, you’re inevitably going to have a few worms along for the ride. Which means I guess that the oil we produce isn’t really ideal for rigorous vegetarians. Thinking about it now, there may be a touch of manure in there too.

But it doesn’t matter because the olives are thoroughly washed at the mill before pressing.

Each year at the mill there’s a bit of excitement when you arrive with your crop – discussions with other producers about the year's production, debate on the price of pressing and the current average ratio of kilos per litre of oil. You always hear, too, that the mill is overflowing with olives already and they may not be able to process yours this year. Somehow they always manage.

So you deliver your olives along with large empty containers marked with your name and off you go. A few days later the oil is ready for collection. After the comparative tastings, some of the oil is decanted into the litre bottles we’ve saved throughout the year, to be given to friends as Christmas presents. The rest is stored in the containers to be used and enjoyed all through the year to come.

Shark! Only kidding. It's (more or less) safe to stay in the water.

Various scientific studies of sharks in the Med in recent years have concluded that populations continue to show a drastic decline. There are nearly 500 species worldwide but fewer than 50 are lucky enough to cruise the shores of Cannes and St Tropez. The most common species here, and most commonly seen on fish stalls and menus, is the roussette or saumonette – the dogfish.
It seems sharks are however increasingly ending up on quayside fishmongers’ stalls and in town fish markets such as the phenomenal market at Sete by the coast. One fish merchant was recently offered a 3 metre, 400 kg shortfin which he divided into three huge chunks and sold to local poissoneries. His experience is that fishermen are bringing in sharks more frequently in recent years. And one local fish merchant adds that they’re larger sharks than he was seeing several years ago. Happily the shortfin, like most sharks, isn’t interested in eating you or your lilo. As long as there’s plenty of seafood around, and tuna and mackerel, you’re pretty safe - shark attacks in the Med are extremely rare. It doesn’t mean Mediterranean sharks aren’t scary of course. The basking shark can be 15 metres long and would give you a bit of a shock after your bouillabaisse and half bottle of cold Picpoul de Pinet. But when sharks come close to the coast, to the beach, it’s usually just because of the currents, not to check out the bathers. The 400 kg shortfin, for example, wasn’t caught by a guy standing on the rocks (obviously). It was caught 54 km off the coast. That’s about 30 miles.

Siamese cats and red squirrels in Provence.

Here in the country between Fontaine-de-Vaucluse and Isle-sur-Sorgue everyone has a cat or a dog, or several of each. Often supplemented by hens, kids, geese, goats and a sad-eyed donkey.
A couple of neighbours resolutely refuse to castrate their cats – vets' bills being moderately expensive – so we have a never-ending supply of new kittens which vary on ginger and siamese themes. The cat which lives at my place left his previous home as a kitten and wondered up the hill to my house over a period of several months, arriving on a very hot July day in 2007, emaciated, with dull fur, and crying for food and water. He probably left home because the little hameau where he lived with a neighbour was too full of other siamese and ginger cats and kittens and he didn’t like scrapping for territory. He’s a peaceful soul and once he'd eaten some tuna and drunk some water he realised he’d found a haven of tranquillity, cat-free apart from himself, and promptly settled down on the terrace for a couple of days, then moved into a cupboard in the front room, built into the bibliotheque.
Most animals like their routines. The first one established by Coco (previously Canicule, which means Heatwave) was that starting early each morning he chased the lizards whose routine in turn was to slip onto the terrace at daybreak and catch ants. As long as the ants and lizards played their part, there was no deviation from routine. Every morning the cat waited with bated breath. Every morning the ants arrived. Every morning the lizards pitched up.
Before long, in true Darwinian style, the lizards had all left or been eaten and I had a house full of ants.
So Coco’s attention turned to the squirrels.
Their routine is to descend from a sloping pine each morning at sunrise to drink from the water bowl kept full for them and periodically shared with passing dogs during the day and sangliers at night. There are four squirrels, a deep rusty red-brown, two rather slight and two more sturdy. They had a habit of thundering across the tiles every day to get to the water but started to find the cat lying in wait on the roof. (There's a good joke about a cat on a roof chasing squirrels - if you don't know it Google it.) So now they arrive safely through the trees, making the final ascent with jerky, noisy movements as their claws grip the bark. Coco watches them from a couple of yards away, mashing his jaws silently in his desire to bite into their squirrelly thighs. They used to stay high in the tree and make rapid, cross little scolding noises if I was outside, coming down only when I obediently went inside for a moment. But now they’re used to me and don’t bother. It’s been too hot to sleep in the house recently so I’ve slept on a mattress in the garden and each morning they wake me as they arrive, keeping one foot on the tree, and one eye on me or the cat as they drink from the bowl.
Creatures of habit, they do the same thing every morning, and every evening at sundown.
And twice a year they have a mad half hour much as some cats do daily. At the beginning of spring and the start of autumn they all get together in the trees nearest the house and dash crazily up and down and round and round, chasing each other in a frenetic display that lasts about an hour. After that they calm down for six months and don’t seem to deviate from their routines for a single day.
They stick strictly to their feeding habits too. Day after day they sit on the high branches eating pine kernels, stripping the cones and chucking little bits of discarded cone into the garden. The first winter I was here I offered them some hazelnuts which they resolutely and completely ignored. Provencal squirrels eat pine nuts and that's that.

Driving in Provence

Is often dangerous but also often surprising and funny. Hordes of people get killed and injured on the roads and it's easy to see why. The driving style is eclectic and rules are interpreted fairly approximately. One of the first things you notice driving here is that there is always another car practically driving into the back seat of yours. Drivers seem to find it impossible to keep any distance behind a car. It's as if there's a rule saying you must get as close to the car in front as you possibly can. Discussing this with my neighbour a while ago he disagreed that this happens. The same week he braked in town and the car behind ran straight into him.
Overtaking whenever possible and preferably when it's dangerous also seems to be a rule. I watched a driver today tailing another car on a long straight stretch of road and just as we all came up to a bend he decided to dodge out and risk everyone's life. Recently, on the same stretch of road I started overtaking a guy (on the straight bit) and a young driver behind me started overtaking me as I was overtaking. Naturally another car appeared from the other direction and we all narrowly avoided a crash.
Almost every week the papers report young drivers and their friends hurt or killed in accidents. It's not necessarily down to alcohol - the driving is too fast and too impulsive. I have many friends and neighbours who, like practically everyone I know in Provence, are courteous and considerate as a rule. Get them behind a steering wheel though and it's like they've had a brain transplant. I mentioned this to one friend last week. We were driving back from the Saturday market at Coustellet and he had to stop to let a woman driver turn in front of him. After much swearing and instant bad temper from someone normally completely laid back, I mentioned my observation that driving here seems to bring out the worst in people. He looked completely blank for a moment and then, like my neighbour, denied it...
If drivers interpret the rules flexibly, the police sometimes do too in my experience. Thankfully. Driving the wrong way up a one-way road in the village a while ago I realised my mistake when a member of the Police Municipal came dashing out of the tiny police station. Assuming she was going to fine me I wound the window down and started apologising. 'Oh,' she said pleasantly 'I just wanted to remind you it's a sens unique. I'm sure you'll remember next time.' And I have remembered, every time since. That's what policing should be like. A service to the public.
I also got stopped last year for not displaying my insurance ticket on the windscreen. I'd received it the day before and, forgetting to display it, had left it in my bag at home. The very pleasant cop pointed out that he couldn't know whether or not I had insurance. When I explained that I had but had forgotten the ticket he said that was OK but I should attach it when I got home. He could have fined me I guess, but he was using his discretion and figured I didn't look like an insurance dodger.
The police also seem to take a driver-friendly view of speed cameras and radar controls. Every week the papers publish the locations where you might get caught for speeding. I used to think it meant people drove more slowly knowing they were being monitored. But it's also possible that locals, reading La Provence, take the back roads while tourists, reading their Rough Guides, drive on in blissful ignorance and are the ones who get pulled over.
Last point about driving here. Don't buy or rent a big car or a smart car or an expensive car. Big cars have been known to get firmly lodged between the walls of houses in narrow medieval streets. And big cars, smart cars and expensive cars will get scuffed, bumped and dented giving you lots of expense. Best practice is to do what everyone else does round here and get a small, cheap car that will get cheerfully bashed and dented several times a year and wear its dents permanently, without worry.
And last, last point - when you park prepare to find you've been blocked in when you come back to the car. Don't worry though. After a minute you'll hear someone call in a smiley voice: 'J'arrive. C'est moi qui vous bloque!' Anyone who double parks is only parking for a minute and will courteously keep an eye out for you returning.
It's not, clearly, part of the eccentric driving etiquette - they're not behind the wheel when they come to release you.