Before the school holidays started we had a bit of an in joke in Basil, that school pupils in most European schools never actually went to school because they were perpetually on school trips. Every city and monument we visited seemed to be overwhelmed with school parties. Imagine our surprise this morning when we were lying in bed enjoying the serene peace of a Provencal pine forest when the silence was shattered by the sound of children.

Why has a school party come to our campsite we wondered. Then more reasonably decided they must be having a trip to the forest. When the noise of children reappeared periodically during the day we decided to go and investigate and found we have a school only a hundred yards or so from the site, built in the middle of the forest away from the centre of the village.

When I went to get our bread from reception this morning, I was told that today was market day in our local village of Fontvieille. Sarah is still not feeling 100% but the news of a market perked her up.

In the days when we spent every summer holiday in France, every village of any size had a market at least once a week. This tradition appears to continue. I donned a rucksack to carry our haul of vegetable and we set off down the, now familiar, dusty track to Fontvieille.

On our arrival in the village things seemed a little quiet for market day and as we got to the car park where the market is held, it turned out to be a very small affair. A vegetable stall; a couple of cheese sellers; a man selling all manner of olives and associated products; and rather incongruously a woman selling some delicious looking Thai snacks. The rest of the market was made up of clothes stalls, which are of little interest to us.

The Market

It didn’t matter, because we were short of various vegetables and the ones on sale looked good. We filled up the rucksack with lettuces, aubergines, tomatoes and courgettes. We even found some ginger, although I don’t think he sells much, because he had to look at his own price sign to remind him how much to charge. I also picked up some green olive and garlic tapenade*, from the olive man, which we both tried at lunch and agreed it was the best we had ever tasted.

Fontvieille Church

While we were in Fontvieille, we decided to have a look in the village church. It was fairly plain but with a nice stone vaulted roof, however there were a couple of things I had not seen before. The first was a large crucifix at the altar which seemed to have a stone head, but body made of some other material. It looked as if the stone head had been married with the rest of the piece, rather than being originally conceived in this way. The second thing that caught my attention was the board commemorating the fallen from the first world war. In Britain I think such memorials list all those killed or missing, without distinction, but in this church the list was split into “dead” and “missing”, which seems a little odd given that presumably virtually 100% of men who went “missing” in the trenches were dead!

Crucifix in Fontvieille Church.

The rest of the day was uneventful. We have sat outside reading and also doing some research on universities for a young relative – we have plenty of time and some past experience to draw on.

Tomorrow we have decided we will probably give Basil a bit of a run out. We haven’t finally decided where to visit, but the Camargue is close at hand as are a few other well known places which we haven’t visited for nearly 30 years.

Door of the day. A side entrance into the church

* For anyone unfamiliar with tapenade, it is essentially a paste of olives and olive oil, which is sometimes paired with other ingredients. I think capers are common and the one we have got is green olives combined with garlic. All of the varieties are delicious and you can certainly find it in some British supermarkets. It is great just spread on bread.