Driving into Saint Rémy de Provence, it is impossible not to notice the avenues of plane trees that are gnarled and knobbled like the arthritic hands of an old man.
Their crowns are pollarded once each year, to keep them from knitting together over the road. Plane trees are enormous, tolerant of pollution and drought. London plane trees are abundant on the streets of that city too, but in France, these avenues are celebrities themselves.
They appear in the paintings of Sisley and his fellow Impressionists - and they’ve been cast in the films of Jean-Luc Godard. Novelist Colette of “Gigi” fame adored them apparently and Albert Camus the French writer, philosopher and winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize for literature, had a fatal connection with an avenue of plane trees.
Saint Rémy is 20km (12 miles) south of Avignon in Provence. A small town of around ten thousand Saint Rémy positively hyperventilates with life, a classy town oozing style and plenty of activity. It’s a living photo album. A blindfolded person could take stunning photographs in the ancient village. Hold up the camera, shoot. The boulevards, the narrow cobblestone streets that wind through the old city, the central shopping precinct and the fountains dedicated to the town’s most famous resident are all fodder for the photographer.
St Remy de Provence
by Gai Read