30 August 2010. Early in the day but after an interesting bus ride from Nîmes. Our backdoor approach to Uzes. We find the street of our rental and then its doors. From the street and the doors, it looks well worn, long lived in. We're not sure what to expect when we open the doors and begin our exploration. After all, this is something we'll be sharing with quite a few friends. We worked our way cautiously through the ground floor to the backyard and its patio within high brick fences--everybody's green space is visible to all their neighbors from the similar heights of their upper floors. Tall, narrow buildings. Also many that had morphed and melded or been chopped in some recent century. By the time we got to the bedroom and patio at the top—across all those centuries, we were pleased with our prospects. And felt our friends would be happy, too. Presently.
The one-night stand we'd had with Uzes on an earlier trip had lured us back, but it was learning its marvelous centrality to so many places to explore that convinced us most. Once we'd settled on our dates and begun organizing sharing with friends, Linny hit the ethereal bricks in search of the perfect place in the town, but looking in other towns, too. She did way better than we'd hoped, scoring this lovely 4-story town house only two blocks from the central plaza, the markets, the boulangeries, the cafes. We had two excellent kitchens, the large one on the 2nd floor (3rd in NA) and the smaller one on the ground to serve the patio and garden.
Linny had to prove we were reputable because the owners stored their art collection there and planned to retire to Uzes. She won them over and negotiated a price for four weeks. The two of us had it to ourselves for two nights before more fun began.
We had rented a car that we could share, since so much of this part of France is rugged, remote, and decidedly rural, although we likely could have gotten to most villages by bus. And home the next day. Our friends would be arriving in twos and fours and singles, spread out over the rest of the month. The arrangement was great for giving all of us options that we didn't have alone or with just our partners, We probably all saw and appreciated more. And importantly, by being in one place for more that a few days, we could see the real life of a large and historic French village and get into it just a little.
We arrived early enough from Nîmes to do our moving in and then have a long walk before dinner. In fact, we found enough provisions at a local store to cook in the rental and taste a lively bottle of red wine from a vineyard and winery in the town--about four blocks away from our place on Jean Jaurez. The evening was perfect. Not sultry or hot, but with a gentle wind and a sky growing toward a gorgeous sunset. This is mountainous country with weather that makes quick decisions. So we didn't know what we'd wake up to or be woken by. We'd learned that on our first trip to Provence.
On our walk, we collected pamphlets from the tourist bureau on the main street, although we had our travel books with us and they were well tagged with post-its and dog ears. We also let the newsstand know we'd be coming for the New York Times so he might want to add one to his delivery. Our acquired maps of Uzes—which we'd drawn in our imaginations as we 'd read travel articles without much organization or discrimination—were out of kilter almost as soon as we walked out the door.
No place looks the same on the ground as in the articles and imagination, but our research on Uzes had actually begun with an accidental visit and enjoying our one night here in 2004—leaving then with no expectation of ever returning. Only the lingering desire. And apparently in the stream of time our memories had been tumbled—smoothed and broken and recalled in odd array. However, our researches had some choices built in. We'd needed a large place and we wanted pedestrian access to daily life, but we also wanted a base for maximum exploration with and without our friends, with and without cars. Uzes rewarded us all for our intentions and attentions.
Here are photos in a first set to be followed soon by a second. So the text sort of picks up again here and is actually referencing some of these photos in the next notes and vice versa.
