Travels in the South

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During my week in Provence we made a visit to the village of Les Pennes Mirabeau, in the hills just outside Marseilles. Lionel (the groom's) brother Quentin (pronounce it the French way, please!) bought a fabulous house there, a couple of months ago, and we were invited to lunch.

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The approach to the house is a narrow, winding road, climbing steeply up the hill and hairpinning round corners; soon we were between buildings on our left and a rocky cliff-face on our right, seemingly close enough to brush against as we drove. The front door to Quentin's place is directly off that road (the slightly recessed doorway in the first small photo, above left). Once inside, we found four large rooms, stacked neatly on top of each other, all joined by a beautiful red-tiled staircase. In the front, the view was just of rock, hardly more than an arm's length away, but at the back, the view was rather more far-reaching...

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We had a lovely lunch there, pizza and bread and salad and wine, enjoying the sunshine and admiring the house and sheltered from the strong winds outside.

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In the early afternoon we left to drive to the coast; Quentin took us to Redonne, a favourite place of his, where stunning pale gold and orange cliffs zig-zag down to the sea...

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That was my first sight of the Mediterranean, and I could have stood there for hours, buffetted by the wind and squinting into the glare of the sun off the water. However, all too soon we made our way back down the cliff path,

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and through the boatyard, past the little harbour,

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to walk around the edge of the inlet to the next village.

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Mum and Andy, I thought so often how you would have loved the houses...