Flashback: The View From Fox-Amphoux
As I settle in here on Viale di Trastevere, I'm hoping to catch up on recording the first bit of my trip--the vacation part with my husband, Andre, and, for the first few days, with our friends Howard, Melissa, and Artemis. We had the great pleasure of staying with them in their home in Fox-Amphoux, a quiet village in Provence. And I'm not using the word quiet casually. When we stepped out of the car, in the middle of a little cluster of homes, the first thing I noticed was the profound quiet--a thick, rich quiet like cream poured over everything, in which the loudest sound for miles around were the cries of the swallows that swooped and soared overhead. From up on the roof, the view stretched on for gorgeous miles. Just ask Artemis. A brief hike in the neighborhood brought us to this chapel, carved into the mountain by a sailor who narrowly escaped a shipwreck: We also wandered and ate in nearby villages, like Aups, where we peeked into a lovely church: And in ...