Page 31 - Jan2023

the same color, a weathered , grayish, off-white.
With a cheery ?bon jour?Madame Odile, who
was white haired and at least three decades
older than her venerable Citroen, merrily slipped
the car into gear, and squirted out of the car
park and on to the blacktop.
My eyes widened as we quickly whizzed right
through and out of the village in a flash. Within
about three minutes she whipped into a lane on
the left and then backed out again, facing
towards the town we had just left. Wheeling
back into town, she slowed and downshifted into
first gear, suddenly veering to the right and up a
steep narrow lane that had been invisible from
the other direction.
A 1970s model Helene, a little two cylinder car, was the
perfect micro-car for traversing a French village.
Now I understood. Not only was it impossible to
turn sharply enough to enter this cobbled pavement
from any other direction, but no regular car would
ever fit. Both sides were completely and
continuously enclosed by compact stone houses, all
connected by short sections of grey stone wall. They
were all textured by many hundreds of years of
scenic weathering. All were adorned as well with
climbing roses, rooted in the cracks between the
paving stones, and clinging to the walls on either
side. The flowers were pink and red and almost red,
and they brushed against our car, often on both
sides simultaneously, as we wound our way up the
steep hillside.
Now I also understood why no address had been
given - there were none. No street signs either
(although no doubt the locals had their names for
every road, alley, and path). As far as I could tell,
Madame Odile was the only person on this end of
town with a car - and probably had the only car that
could make it up there anyway. (Later, when I came
back down the same way on foot, I found that I
could sometimes touch the walls on both sides with
my fingertips at the same time).
As our micro-car bounced over the paver stones
climbing up into the village, we briskly swerved into
a low ceilinged sort of rocky cave that served as the
Helene?s garage. Getting out of the car, we climbed
up carved stone steps to a small garden overlooking
the village below.
What a fairy tale world it was. It was quiet. The
air was mellow and mild with a faint breeze, and
sunlight slanted through gaps in the low clouds.
There were no power poles, no wires, no signs, no
advertising, no street lights. Foot traffic consisted of
a few locals ambling along in muted conversation
many meters down below us. Hardly anything was
painted - almost everything was either natural
stone, weathered wood, or vegetation of some sort
or another. Very few vehicles traversed the modern
road far below, snaking along the edge of the river.
Around here, cars were for trips to the world
outside, not for daily use, and not really part of the
fabric of village life. Continued on page 32
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