The Way of Wanderlust (36 page)
I OPENED THE WINDOWS OF MY THIRD-FLOOR
hotel room in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Before me spread a view of green hillsides dotted with straw-colored, terracotta-roofed homes, sloping toward the distant, glinting Mediterranean Sea. I took a deep breath and the faint scent of lavender wafted over me like a balm. Suddenly it hit me that one of my deepest fantasies was coming true: “For a day,” I proclaimed to the stony square below, “I'm a resident of Saint-Paul!”
I'd visited this rocky hilltop village in the hinterland of France's C
ô
te d'Azur twice before, but both times I'd been forced to stay well outside the medieval ramparts and to explore the town only on day-trips. This visit was different: I had procured a room in the elegant hotel Le Saint Paul, a 16th-century Renaissance mansion in the heart of the village.
I had fallen in love with this region's rare mix of sun and sea, herb and bloom, art and architecture, craft and cuisine, soul and sense, as a fresh-out-of-college wanderer more than thirty years before, and it had enchanted me ever since. Now I resolved to make the most of my time in Saint-Paul.
Immediately I took to the cobbled streets, now
my
streets. Visitors thronged them, but no matter. “
Bienvenue
Ã
Saint-Paul
,” I graciously greeted them in my mind.
Welcome to my village.
As on previous visits, I quickly realized that the real magic of Saint-Paul unfurls when you simply wander without plan or destination.
I began at the 17th-century Place de la Grande Fontaine, a market square distinguished by a monumental urn-shaped fountain. The town market used to be held here, and for centuries residents would come to fetch fresh water for their drinking and cleaning; as I watched, two children ran up to cup a sip from the dripping spigots and a trio of backpackers gratefully filled their bottles. From this square I ambled up winding alleys to the town hall, located in the medieval castle and in whose stony hush French movie stars Yves Montand and Simone Signoret married in 1951.
My wanderings took me beyond the ramparts and through the Porte de Nice to the cemetery, where an Iron Age settlement thrived more than 2,000 years ago and where I paid homage to the simple stone tomb of artist Marc Chagall, who lived in Saint-Paul from 1966 to 1985. Then I re-entered the ramparts and came upon the stunning Chapelle des Penitents Blancs, a spare 17th-century chapel that was luminously re-decorated by Belgian artist Jean-Michel Folon and re-opened in 2008.
These routeless ramblings revealed the village as a happy marriage of old and new: a meandering medieval maze of cobbled lanes and well-preserved battlements, whose dwellings now house galleries, restaurants, crafts shops, and cafés. While the ramparts don't dissuade the hundreds of tourists who squeeze through the narrow streets, because cars are limited to residents, Saint-Paul still seems supremely livable. Green vines arch over alleyways, jasmine clambers up sun-splashed walls, crimson flowers burst from window boxesâand visitors and residents come and go in easy harmony. The village seems to embody tranquility and tastefulness: The galleries are artful compositions of colorful canvases and provocative sculptures; in the shops, the platters and bowls, scarves and shawls, reflect the rich, earthy tones of the hills and gardens outside; and in the alleyways, the fragrances of herbs and perfumes mingle with the scents of garlic and pizza.
As a temporary resident, I had a schedule-free afternoon and evening to explore Saint-Paul, so I was able to spontaneously accept when a last-minute cancellation liberated a luncheon table at La Colombe d'Or, a place where I'd dreamed of dining. This restaurant-inn was founded in the early 1920s by the perspicacious and congenial Paul Roux, son of a local farmer, who befriended many of the painters who moved to the region for its salubrious climate, sunlight, and clear air. When these painters didn't have money to pay for their meals or nights at his inn, Roux is said to have accepted paintings instead. Over the years, he accumulated a museum-quality collection of works by such artists as Bonnard, Dufy, Utrillo, Chagall, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, and Mir
ó
, which are still on display for diners to savor.
Lunch at La Colombe d'Or proved as enchanting as the restaurant's history. Ensconced under a white parasol on a sun-mottled terrace, with a Leger mural wrought into the wall on my right, I admired the living landscape before me: rolling verdant hillsides lush with vineyards and cypress, olive, orange, and fig trees, and pastel villas the color of wheat and sand and rose. Then, amid a choreography of weaving waiters and seductive smells, an artful succession of specialties appeared: fragrant truffle salad followed by savory grilled sea bream with green beans, ending with plump red raspberries.
As I feasted, time slowed and I lost myself to the symphony of silverware on china, the splash of wine into glasses, and the mellifluous, multilingual chatter of diners in summery clothes.
After lunch, I sat on the sprawling Jeu de Boules just outside the restaurant and watched four gentlemen in berets and vests play a lively late-afternoon game of
petangue
. Then I whiled away a couple of hours, first talking troubadours and textiles with an exuberant twenty-something salesclerk and later talking clothing and canvases with café connoisseurs who became relaxed and talkative as the tourist crowds thinned.
Toward evening, as the slanting sun painted the hills in warm golden tones, I savored a pizza and a glass of
vin rosé
on a vine-shaded terrace, then set off for the opulently updated comforts of my 16th-century home, where Provencal fabrics, elegant artworks, and house-made madeleines awaited.
As I walked through the peaceful streets, a different Saint-Paul sprang to life, now that the tourist throngs had departed. The jewelry-maker who'd fashioned the necklace I'd bought that morning walked by, touched me lightly on the shoulder, and murmured a friendly “
Bonsoir
,” two children skittered by in answer to their mother's dinner call, a trio of neighborhood cats meowed, and the salesclerk who'd shared her passions an hour earlier waved to me from her doorway.
“I was hoping you'd pass by!” she called. Then she skipped forward and pressed a lavender sachet into my hands. “This is for your souvenir of Saint-Paul,” she said smiling, and her cheeks took on the color of rosé.
Dusk's grainy light softened the chiseled walls; the cobbled streets echoed with ancient footfalls. Lamplight shone through windows here and there, and the music of laughter and clinking glasses floated on the air. I looked up at the tower silhouetted against the darkening sky where a few pin-prick stars had begun to shine. I lingered and lingered as the village quieted into night, until the moon lay a veil of Provencal lace over the scene and a whiff of lavender rose in the breeze.
I stopped and sighed and closed my eyes. Then I opened my arms wide to embrace it all:
my Saint-Paul.
This is the most recent story in this collection. I visited Cambodia in the autumn of 2014 and spent the month of December working on this piece. I wrote it for a new section of BBC Travel that I had been hired to edit and that had launched in July of 2014, called Words & Wanderlust. The goal was to present high-quality long-form articles that grappled with the rigors as well as the rewards of travel, and that ultimately were about falling in love with the world. Cambodia hit me in the gutâand the heart, and the soulâin ways that I never anticipated. It was a deeply multi-layered experience for me, making me question my views of humanity on one level, expanding my understanding of Cambodian history and culture on another, reconnecting me with the adventurer at my core on still another, and finally, teaching me something precious and irreplaceable about the journey we all share.
AS MR. KIM NAVIGATED HIS CAR
onto the puddled, potholed road that led to Banteay Chhmar, he turned to me. “Where are you staying?” he asked.
“I don't know,” I said.
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “There are no hotels in Banteay Chhmar.”
“I know,” I said. “I arranged a homestay. On my computer.”
“OK. Where is the home?”
“I don't know.”
He swiveled to face me. “Where should I take you?”
This moment seemed to symbolize my entire Cambodia trip: Where was I going? Why was I here?
I had arrived in Cambodia after a week-long tour consisting of lectures, book readings, and writing workshops in Melbourne and Singapore. When I was planning that tour half a year earlier, I realized that Siem Reap was just a short flight from Singapore. I had been wanting to visit Siem Reap since childhood, when I had seen a photo of Angkor Wat in a
National Geographic
magazine. Some kind of seed had been planted then, and over four decades, its stony tendrils had blossomed into an irresistible longing. I had to see that place, touch its ground, smell its air. Now it would be just two hours away by plane. I booked a one-week visit.
Over the ensuing months, as I was researching Siem Reap, I discovered a village about 100 miles to the northwest called Banteay Chhmar, where an organization named Community-Based Tourism (CBT) arranged homestays. There was scant information online, but what I found promised amazing ruins and kind people. At first I thought I would base myself in Siem Reap and spend one night in Banteay Chhmar. Then I decided to make it two nights. As time passed, the image of going off the map to little-visited Banteay Chhmar took hold of me, and I ended up reserving a three-night stay through the CBT's website.
Mr. Kim met me at the airport to take me to my Siem Reap hotel. During the twenty-minute drive, he spoke easily and impressed me with his knowledge, English fluency, and calm, kind air. I asked him about getting to Banteay Chhmar. A few years earlier, he said, the drive would have taken most of a day, but recently a paved highway had been built almost all the way to the village, and now the journey would be about three hours by highway and just thirty minutes along bumpy, unpaved paths. “Of course,” he added with a wry smile as a sudden downpour turned the windshield into a washing machine, “it's the rainy season, so it might take longer.” I asked if he could take me, and he said sure, that he liked that part of Cambodia and had served in the army there.