Le Tour by Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Author:Geoffrey Wheatcroft [Wheatcroft, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
ISBN: 9781471128950
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Repos

Provence

Two great mountain ranges are always traversed by the Tour, the Alps and Pyrenees, and two solitary volcanic peaks are sometimes climbed. An ideal Tour would include both Puy de Dôme and Mont Ventoux, but the ideal is rarely achieved; the two have only been climbed twelve times each, and only twice, in 1952 and 1967, did the parcours include both. Although not as high as the great Alpine passes, they are both frightening, psychologically as much as physically, leaping up as they do from their surroundings, almost as though defying anyone to climb them, on foot or by vélo.

In summer the searing heat of Provence is tempered by the winds of the Vaucluse where Mont Ventoux stands and where mistral meets tramonte with alarming effect. As Julian Barnes says, the popular etymology in which Ventoux derives from vent or wind is all too appropriate (though false: the roots of ‘ventoux’ are in the Ligurian ven- for mountain, so that ‘Mont Ventoux’ with disappointing pleonasm means ‘Mount Mountain’). The strongest gust of wind ever recorded on Earth was on the peak here in February 1967, at 320 k.p.h. It is an awe-inspiring place seen from afar, let alone as one ascends it.

And it is only dubiously French. Originally a Roman province (Provincia, or the Province, giving that name to the language), it remained a highly distinctive territory for many centuries, and in some ways is so even now. Until the later Middle Ages, the County of Provence ran from the mouth of the Rhône east to Nizza, or Nice, and north into the Alps, and the Margravate of Provence stood either side of the Rhône valley, from Viviers north to Valence: two independent principalities, separate but sharing a name, like Duchy and Free-County of Burgundy further north; while Avignon and the Venaisin, including Mont Ventoux, belonged to the Popes. This history has left the region with many magnificences, from the Classical antiquities of Orange, where I once heard Die Zauberflöte performed in the faultless acoustics of the Roman theatre, and Vaison-la-Romaine, to the grandeurs of papal Avignon. Even after Provence had been absorbed by the kingdom of France, it was a long way from anywhere – or at least from Paris – and it minded its own business.

Then, around 200 years ago, the English discovered the balmy calm of the Provençal coast, to be called the Riviera or Côte d’Azur (they discovered its pleasures in winter, that is, in saner days before people flocked to grill themselves on distant beaches in August). And the aristocrats and rentiers who gave their name to the Promenade des Anglais in Nice enjoyed a kind of literary validation, as the very name Provence acquired its own special resonance, with Keats longing for a draught of vintage tasting of Flora and the country green, ‘Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth.’ Parisians also learned the delights of the south: before the Mediterranean meant ‘sea, sun and sex’ for trippers, Verdi’s Germont could console his son

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