Provence: Past and Present A land of scents, sea, mountains and wind. A land exalted by painters and poets. Claude Monet came here to find the light that shines on his water lilies, Pablo Picasso chose Vallauris to be the site of a pottery, Georges Braque adored the countryside of Estaque around Marseilles which was where his ideas that developed into Cubism were inspired, and Mont Sainte-Victoire was made famous around the world by twelve paintings by Paul C￯﾿ﾽzanne, each of which depicted in a difficult light. With its clear, pure blue sky regularly swept by the mistral, Provence never fails to delight the traveler in search of emotions. From the enchanted clearness of the water in the fountain of Saint-Paul to the pale green of the sea at dawn when sea and coast merge like the colors of C￯﾿ﾽzanne and Bonnard. In contrast to the infinite shades of the water, there is the dazzling white limestone of the Calanques, the ochre earth at Roussillon, the dark green of the cluster pines, the golden yellow of the sunflowers and the paler yellow of the mimosa. Everywhere in Provence, the subtle smells of thyme, rosemary and mastic trees permeate the air, but it is the intense perfume of lavender that strikes one at the start of summer and blue carpets welcome the visitor to the magnificent abbey of Senanque and the village of Sault that nestles between Monieux and Lagarde d'Apt. The gentle silver-grey landscapes of olive trees alternate with steep rocky walls, like the Grand Canyon of Verdon, the deepest in Europe and often compared to its namesake in Colorado. Such physical drama is contrasted by the gentle tranquility of medieval hilltop villages with their twisting, narrow streets lined with cobbles, their houses roofed with round tiles colored with a pale pink that is seen nowhere else, and each with a small central square bordered by centuries-old plane trees where the locals play petanque