A Taste of Provence

The Changing Faces of Modern Art

2014-02-20T11:57:00.003+01:00

This is Marseille's big show of the late winter / early spring - in fact it's the city's most ambitious show of the year. Visages: Picasso, Magritte, Warhol... (Faces: Picasso, Magritte, Warhol...) traces the representation of the human face in art from the early 20th century to the present day through 150 works by 97 leading artists, also including Munch, Grosz, Giacometti, Bonnard and Bacon. The show opens tomorrow (21 February), but we got a preview yesterday at the press show and here's our report: click here to read more

The Man From Michelin, He Say Yes

2014-02-18T18:16:00.001+01:00

It's that time of year again! In February Michelin publishes the new editions of its influential guides, both touristic and gastronomic. First up is tourism (the restaurant guide follows later this month) - and it seems as though all those renovations and new or revamped museums in Marseille have paid off, big-time because the man from Michelin has positively showered the city with stars. Click here to read more

Who Chooses France's Most Beautiful Villages?

2014-02-16T19:04:00.001+01:00

I've often wondered idly who chooses France's Most Beautiful Villages, on what basis and whether villages ever get booted off the list (they do). So I found out a bit more about this typically bureaucratic system - and about the Most Beautiful Village which left the list of its own accord. Click here to read more

Hip Hop Hooray For Dance In Avignon

2014-02-15T17:45:00.000+01:00

The huge Avignon Theatre Festival in July isn't the only major arts event in town. Les Hivernales, as the name hints, unfolds in winter (or rather, this year, in the very early spring) and celebrates dance, and in 2014 hip hop is the star. Click here to read more

One of the Best Restaurants in Aix en Provence

2014-02-12T20:24:00.001+01:00

I've been hearing really great things about Vintrépide, a new-ish restaurant in a quiet little backstreet right on the edge of the Old Town in Aix en Provence. So one mid-week lunchtime we dropped by to check it out. The verdict: while prices aren't cheap (but then that's true of pretty much any half-way decent restaurant in Aix), Vintrépide represents superlative value and is certainly one of the best spots to eat in town. Click here to read more

World's Largest Cruise Ship To Sail to Marseille

2014-02-08T15:34:00.002+01:00

The American cruise company Royal Caribbean has just announced that its monster cruise ship, Allure of the Seas - which claims to be the largest in the world with accommodation for 5400 passengers, plus another couple of thousand more crew - will be sailing to Marseille in 2015 - and, for those ultra early birds among you, booking for this floating city is already open (and you can bet the sky will be a good deal bluer on the Mediterranean than in the above photo). Click here to read more

Brangelina Strikes Gold, Again

2014-02-07T14:57:00.000+01:00

Normal service returns here at A Taste of Provence after a brisk but fabulous two-week break in Mexico, and there's a ton of news to catch up with. First off, we learn that Miraval rosé, the celebrity wine curated by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at their Provence estate, has just won yet more accolades. After rave reviews for the couple's maiden, 2012 vintage, the second, 2013 wine - which goes on sale this week - has been acclaimed in equally glowing terms ("charmingly pretty"... "a mouthwatering finish") in Decanter magazine. Click here to read more

Discover Pagnol in the Hills of Aubagne

2014-01-19T19:57:00.002+01:00

Each year, just outside Marseille, a group of actors offers a season of all-day hikes combined with theatrical performances. These are a really brilliant experience. As you hike through the craggy hills of Aubagne and Allauch, you watch (and play an extra in) a show dramatising Marcel Pagnol's work in the very landscapes where it's set. Previous plays have told the celebrated story of Manon des Sources or been based on the charming comedy The Baker's Wife. This year there's a new spectacle inspired by Pagnol's 1938 satire, Le Schpountz, about a naive bumpkin who fantasises about becoming a movie star (it originally starred the popular local actor Fernandel, seen on the pster above). Click here to read more

Memories of the First World War in Provence

2014-01-18T20:20:00.001+01:00

The centenary of the beginning of the First World War will be marked in many ways across Europe, and one of the first examples is in Avignon, which is staging an exhibition of the drawings of the Belgian symbolist artist Henry de Groux. Born in 1866, de Groux would have been too old to fight in the war, but he spent time at the front in the Marne and hauntingly captured the horrors he saw there. Around 40 of his powerful pieces are on display in the foyer of the Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall) from 7 February to 9 March. Pictured above: L'Assaut, Verdun. And there's plenty more to come in the course of the year. Click here to read more

A New Comic-Strip Tramway For Aubagne

2014-01-17T10:57:00.001+01:00

How do you fancy these chaps and chapettes as fellow commuters? When the town of Aubagne, just outside Marseille, decided to install a new tramway system, it also commissioned a leading artist to design it. The choice fell on Hervé Di Rosa, who hails from Sète, just along the coast. Di Rosa is a leading practitioner of bandes dessinées (graphic novels) and one of his most popular characters, the jolly one-eyed René, inspired these designs. Click here to read more

Enrolment Opens For The World's Most Romantic Swimming Race

2014-01-16T09:46:00.000+01:00

One of the world's most romantic swimming races must surely be the Monte Cristo Challenge. Each year in June some 700 swimmers in Marseille set off from the Château d'If, inspired by Edmund Dantès, the hero of Alexandre Dumas' classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo. The 2014 dates have just been confirmed, as is the day when online enrolment opens/ Click here to read more

An Explosion of Gold at the Quarries of Lights

2014-01-14T09:07:00.001+01:00

The Quarries of Lights, one of the major attractions in the Avignon / Saint Rémy de Provence area, are temporarily closed while a brand-new show for 2014 is being installed. But here's a preview of what to expect when they reopen in March: an explosion of gold and colour courtesy of Gustav Klimt (the author of the famous Kiss, which you can glimpse in the simulation of the spectacle, pictured above), plus other painters of the Viennese school. And, while you're waiting, the Quarries online shop has a sale, with heavy discounts on merchandise linked to the 2013 show, including pretty notebooks, mugs and so on with a Renoir or Monet theme. Click here to read more

Horsing About in Avignon

2014-01-12T17:01:00.000+01:00

A midwinter highlight in Avignon, Cheval Passion (Horse Passion) is a celebration of all things equestrian. One of the leading events of its kind in Europe, it features 1,200 horses, 250 exhibitors and 90 hours of events and performances in 2014 - and it gallops off this week. Click here to read more

The Mysterious Opéra Noir Comes To Marseille

2014-01-11T10:51:00.000+01:00

There's a mysterious new arrival in central Marseille: inaugurated yesterday, the Opéra Noir is an architectural and sound installation on the place Lulli, just behind the real Opéra de Marseille, of which it is an eerie shadow. Click here to read more

Marseille's Low-Cost Air Terminal Gets A Facelift

2014-01-06T18:20:00.001+01:00

With its long queues at security checks and cramped conditions in the departure lounge, mp2, the low-cost air terminal at Marseille-Provence airport, is miserable to fly to and from. It currently scores one of the lowest marks on the scale of standards set by Iata, the trade association which represents the international airline industry. But that's about to change - and not before time. In 2014 a 4.9 million €uro investment programme will expand and improve the facilities. Click here to read more

A Feast Fit For Three Kings

2014-01-02T17:16:00.001+01:00

Happy New Year -- and the party still isn't over in Provence! Christmas celebrations down here rumble on into early February but this month's highlight is the Epiphany festivities. First off are the delicious brioches des rois glowing temptingly in bakeries all over the region. And, if you're in Aix, you might take a look at the Marche des Rois, the procession through town of the Three Kings, accompanied by their camels. Click here to read more

The Place To Be In Provence On New Year's Eve

2013-12-29T13:44:00.002+01:00

For a while it seemed as if it would all end with a whimper. Provence's spectacular Capital of Culture year has been slowly winding down through the autumn; the J1 Hangar is closed and later this week the event's main showcase, the M Pavillion, will be dismantled. But Marseille is not a city likely to pass up the chance of a party and, although nothing at all was initially for New Year's Eve, now it seems as though the Old Port will be the place to be on Tuesday night. Click here to read more

Christmas Eve in Provence

2013-12-22T08:51:00.001+01:00

One of the most beautiful Christmas events in Provence is the pastrage, or shepherds' procession, which traditionally takes place just before midnight on Christmas Eve. Only a handful of villages preserve this tradition - but it is justifiably one of the region's most popular draws. Click here to read more.

Visit an Apartment at Le Corbusier's Radiant City

2013-12-19T09:37:00.000+01:00

This modest kitchen might not look like much. But at the time it was utterly revolutionary: a state-of-the-art fitted kitchen designed by Le Corbusier for his trail-blazing, modernist housing complex in Marseille, the Radiant City. Now one of the 337 apartments in this block has just opened to the public for the first time. We went along this week for a press preview. Click here to read more

Michelin-Starred Dining at Marseille Airport

2013-12-16T09:38:00.001+01:00

You don't normally expect gourmet food at an airport. And, until recently, the one in Marseille had only a motley selection of the usual fast-food joints of which the most exciting was probably France's first Burger King outlet. But this year a new gastronomic restaurant, Chefs en Provence, opened in Terminal One. Every three months on a rotating basis one of the region's top chefs takes over the supervision of the menu. First up was Michel Portos. And this week another Michelin laureate, Lionel Lévy, takes over the reins. Click here to read more

Drumming in the Midwinter Solstice

2013-12-13T09:51:00.001+01:00

Apart from all the Christmas markets and celebrations, things can get a little quiet in Provence at this time of year. But here's a fantastic diary date for the evening of the winter solstice (21 Dec): a free outdoor concert by crack percussions Les Commandos Percus and fireworks show in La Ciotat. Click here to read more

A New Five-Star Hotel in Aix en Provence

2013-12-05T13:01:00.000+01:00

Next month a new five-star hotel, the Renaissance, will open in Aix en Provence. It's located about a five-minute walk from Aix's main tourist area - La Rotonde and the bottom of the Cours Mirabeau - surrounded by the city's stunning cluster of new, architect-designed cultural buildings including Rudy Ricciotti's Pavillon Noir, Kengo Kuma's Conservatory of Music, the Grand Théâtre de Provence and the Cité du Livre.

Like its ultra-contemporary neighbours, The Renaissance is not one of those historic 18th century hôtels particuliers for which Aix is famous but a modern building (it's designed by the Marseille architects Claude Sabin Nadjari and Rémy Saada).

And, also like its neighbours, the hotel is presenting itself as an art hub, with contemporary paintings and sculptures in the public spaces and a promised programme of cultural events featuring visits from local, national and international artists. Click here to read more

Celebrating the New Season's Olive Oil

2013-11-27T09:30:00.000+01:00

The early winter in Provence is not just the season of new wine and truffle festivals: the year's latest pressing of olive oil is celebrated here from late November. The new pressing is marked with a Fête de l'huile d'olive nouvelle. Tastings, music, wine, cookery demonstrations, local food (often an aïoli) and general revelry are to be expected on such occasions. Click here to read more

Brad and Angelina's Starry Wine

2013-11-26T09:24:00.000+01:00

In March this year Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, two of Provence's most famous vineyard owners, pictured (apparently after enjoying a bottle or two of their own tipple), launched an organic rosé wine created by the Perrin wine-making family.

Named Miraval, it went on sale in March 2013, when most of the stock was sold out within five hours at 15-16 €uros a bottle (click here to buy Miraval Rosé which has since become available online again).

Already well-received by critics, the wine has now just received a huge boost after it was included on a list of the top 100 wines in the world compiled by Wine Spectator magazine (reportedly the tasting was carried out blind). Click here to read more

Sheep in the Spotlight

2013-11-24T14:04:00.000+01:00

Count the sheep! There'll certainly be plenty of them around at the Fête des Bergers, or Shepherds' Festival, in Istres, on the Blue Coast just north-west of Marseille all this week. This very provençal farmer's festival will include sheepdog trials, sheep processions - a sort of winter transhumance - and, inevitably, a feast. Will roast lamb be on the menu? Click here to read more