Winter in the French Drôme

The French Drôme, a region where a lot of tourists are rusging by on their way to the Provençe or Cote d'Azur. I get there every year, even in winter. In 2003, even during the New Year. Unexpected and also a little too fast and too short.
Not so directly my thought about a pleasant holiday but still one of the most wonderful weeks of my 20,650 days of life. A different world, a different landscape.

The bald gnarled vines, the leafless plane trees with their now more striking peeled trunks and with their bare branches embracing the grey winter sky, the olive trees in fruit with even more character and the endless lavender fields without flowers, all together a powerful graphic landscape, worthy of a painting.

The evening light on the Col d' Ey and the view of the valley of the Ennuye and the village of St Jalle is of an unreal beauty and as an advent we discover magical mistletoe trees in a few lonely almond trees. And of course, nowhere to be seen a tourist, a breath of fresh air but at the same time strange. A winter dream!

In the old town area of Vaison-la-Romain there is only one shop/restaurant open but a shop with the right name for a herbalist L' Alambic. The real alambic is the steam boiler in which the lavender is distilled. In that restaurant we eat French fries with lettuce and pizza, drink a Belgian Chimaybeer and buy a savon d'Alep, an olive soap with laurel oil. Alep soap good for skin and hair and according to the local 'herbalist' even suitable to put in your bed against leg cramps and other bed ailments.

Nyons

We stay in the southern French town of Nyons, the centre of olive cultivation on the border between Drôme and Provence. The region where olives can still be grown just as efficiently. We also find here the olive museum, where 2 years ago I tasted the best olives of my life. Today in the same city in a cheap cafeteria I eat the worst olives of my life. But that's only funny and educational. Curiously strange is also, to see and smell the aromatic garden in a frozen state. The old eucalyptus tree, the many varieties of lavender, the rosemary bench and the many other herbs that I have so often snorted in the summer.

Continuing to St-Jalle along the bare apricot trees, we visit a village perchée, Rochebrune and then descend along the hill, past the naturist camp to Buis-les-Baronnies. There I see for the first time, in real life, ripe olives hanging on their own trees. I can't resist the temptation to taste one, even though they're not meant to. And I must say that the taste was pretty bad, slightly greasy smoulder with a little bitter aftertaste.

Along the river L' Ouvèze we look at how our plants, known from the summer, look like in winter. Thyme is still fragrant, the curry plant Helychrisum shines with silver grey and even new fennel leaves are fresh. Tube-les-Baronnies without tourists and without heat is also a pleasant surprise. Winter in the Drôme!

#drome #reizen #olijfboom