After three days in Paris, we were finally heading for Provence!
We all met our tour director, Jackie (from French Escapade) and her assistant, Marie, at the train station in Avignon. It was a relief to finally turn over all the decision-making to someone else! I knew they would have things well in hand, but I wondered what surprises they had planned for us throughout the week. I had never taught a workshop in Provence before, so it was all as new to me as it was to my students.
We checked into our beautiful hotel just outside St-Remy-de-Provence.
Villa Glanum is located just across the road from Saint Paul-de-Mausole, the sanitarium where Vincent van Gogh spent the last year of his life, and right next door to Glanum, the ruins of an ancient Roman city.
The grounds around the hotel were beautifully landscaped, with paths meandering through the olive trees, and flowers everywhere.
The lavender was in full bloom when we were there in June. That’s what we came to see!
In the evening before dinner, we met for a walk to the ruins and Jackie told us the history of the place. We saw an impressive triumphal arch that was originally the entryway into the city of Glanum, which was overrun during the collapse of the Roman Empire. The building materials were all recycled to construct St. Remy.
The ancient mausoleum that I sketched was built by two sons as a tribute to their father. It’s over 2000 years old. It amazes me that it’s still standing today. In the town where I live, they tear down houses that are a hundred years old, because “It’s too expensive to maintain them.”
You can see by the photo that I pushed the colors a bit to make the sketch more interesting, and I took away the dark shadows that were covering the lower half of the structure. Artistic license at work!
We had a wonderful dinner that evening and had a chance to get acquainted with each other. There were students from as far away as Grenada!
The week was off to a great start, but I couldn’t wait for the next day, when we would visit Saint Paul-de-Mausole to walk and sketch in the footsteps of Vincent.
One Comment
Wow what a wonderful post. Great sketch and lovely photos! I really enjoyed your post today!! Thx!