In general I avoid any form of guided tour: they remind me too much of school field trips, with the organized transportation, inferior food options, and the sense that my time was never my own to command. There’s little chance on a tour of making some surprising and unexpected discovery all of one’s own; seldom much scope for wandering down an interesting side alley simply because the light there falls at an intriguing angle.
Nonetheless, it is difficult to visit all the Roman sites I wanted to see in Provence by public transportation, and driving myself was not an option, so on a recent trip I enrolled in Viator’s “Le Grand Tour Provence”, a daytrip by minibus. I’d done the minibus trip once before in France, for similar reasons: a desire to see several chateaux of the Loire valley in one day without having to negotiate seriously uncooperative train and bus schedules.
That earlier trip had been entertaining enough, but the Viator one, I have to say, was rather better. “Le Grand Tour” is an exhausting scouring of the countryside around Avignon; it takes in two major Roman sites, three Provencal villages, and a wine tasting in a single day; and though the tour description warns that you’ll need your own money to buy lunch, you won’t need very much, because there’s no time to buy a sit-down meal in this busy itinerary. A pick-up meal from a boulangerie in Orange, to be eaten in the car or as an impromptu picnic, is much more likely. There’s also a fair amount of walking: up and down the steps of the great theater at Orange; along the Gard river to the Pont du Gard; around the twisting back streets of Roussillon, Gordes, and Les Baux de Provence. On a hot day, there is a good deal of dust and one is grateful to climb back into the minivan, ideally with a bottle of cold water bought at one of the shops. These sites are also chosen for their appeal to tourists, and the three villages in particular are crowded not only by people very like oneself, but also by shopkeepers eager to sell you bundles of dried lavender; rosemary or verveine or lavender soap; many-flavored honeys; extremely expensive olive oil; artisanal pastis; gift boxes full of a diamond-shaped candy made of citrus and frosted with white icing; and — in some peculiar concession to the local insect life — every possible size of porcelain cicada, including some that hang on the wall and chirp when anyone walks by.
Three things made this a positive experience despite the crowds, temperature, and general pace.
First was simply the quality of the attractions in question. The Roman theater at Orange is one of the best-preserved in the world, with a standing stage wall that somehow made it through centuries of devastation and war — including several episodes where it was used as partial defense against an incoming army; in the 19th century it was partially repaired, some of the columns and statuary work dug out of the ground, the amphitheater steps re-installed. Sarah Bernhardt played there, and now so do modern actors and (especially) singers. It has therefore a quality of eternity, like the city of Rome itself: it is not any longer “authentically” antique, the modern stage rebuilt and strung with modern lights, the orchestra pit laid in readiness for modern instruments. It doesn’t look as it might have looked when built. Instead it conveys a sense of duration and on-going human struggle; the same edifice has served as imperial propaganda and the image of a centralized power, and as a barricade against agents of another centralized power.
The Pont du Gard, the Roman aqueduct that spans the Gard river and that has incidentally sometimes also served as a bridge, has this same quality: it is an unquestionably powerful symbol of the greatness of Roman engineering and the scope of Roman vision. The masonry is a lesson in itself, still bearing the holes and outcroppings to which the building scaffolding must have been attached when the aqueduct was first built. It is now accompanied across the river by a lower, plainer, more modern bridge whose function is to allow one to look at the older edifice without causing it any damage; but again there is the sense of endurance and fitness for a multitude of human purposes.
The second point in favor was the tour guide, the third the other tourists on this particular trip. There is a lot of time in the minibus to talk, because the tour circles all around Avignon and heads through mountainous terrain and through fields of sunflowers and along drives shady with sycamore trees; and this could have been dull or forcedly chatty but was neither. My fellow tourists were three Japanese ladies (only one of whom spoke any English): they were exquisitely dressed in delicate sundresses and light scarves, and one had a knack with a sketchpad and would make rapid line-drawings in lieu of taking pictures. She was not at all shy of this and it was a pleasure to watch. In the afternoon we were joined also by a couple from Florida of stately good manners. As for the tour guide, she kept us to our schedule, but managed despite all to make it seem not too horribly rushed; knew from evident long experience when to point out the bathrooms or suggest we buy water or pull over for an unexpectedly good scenic view; had information for us, but did not make us feel like children in elementary school.
I can’t say it would be the same for everyone; there’s a large element of chance in these things. As there should be in travel.
is a sort of travel book that thoroughly shames the would-be travel writer. Gellhorn selects five journeys of special difficulty from a long and adventurous life, including China when it was half-occupied by the Japanese, the Caribbean during World War II, Moscow under Soviet oppression. She meets lepers, contracts fevers, views elephants close-up, smuggles. Someone who has mostly trekked around western Europe on a railpass has no experience of the sorts of dangers Gellhorn meets, and meets easily.