Now there is a real Chezbon!

I've bought a house here in Roquebrun, at the top of the old village, right below the Mediterranean Garden and the tenth century tower. It is probably about 600 feet from the tower, which had extensive fortifications around it, and closer than that to the 14th century church, which again had an abbey and dependances. The house dates from around 1860 and is on four levels: the bottom level is the "cave" which we would call the basement. It consists of a large room, and two smaller ones which are vaulted. I think parts of the vaulted cave date back much farther than the house itself. This village, like so many others, has layers of buildings. Something would fall down or be destroyed by an invading army (such as the Albigensian crusade), and the old foundations and walls reused for the next building. The next level up is the main floor, with the kitchen and living room; above that are three bedrooms and a bathroom, and at the top is a grenier (attic). The grenier was originally for drying chestnuts, and has great views over the river and the Orb Valley. Before I move in, I'm having additional windows installed and the grenier made habitable, including adding a stairway inside the house as the current grenier access is from an outside stairway. The house is built into a hill, so its four stories on one end and only one at the other. Its stone, of course, like all of the village houses, and the walls are two feet thick, which is why I'm not doing the windows myself. There is a large original Languedoc style fireplace, about six feet across (see photos). There are also ruins, two small single story rooms and one larger two story house with a cave. Here you can rebuild legally anything that was once a house, so I will probably do that. There are fewer restrictions on using old walls, or meeting current building codes, than there are in the US. I will probably have possession some time toward the end of April, but not move in until the first of June, as I don't want to be living there when the massive work is being done.

It has a large garden on several levels, and shares no common walls with any other houses, both things being unusual for a village house. Its quite private, as the public park is below me assuring my views, on the west side is my property for probably about fifty feet and then the windowless walls of a neighbor's house, barely visible, and they visit infrequently. The back of the property (north side) is below the road, and the other side (east) has a garden area about 20 feet wide against the two story stone walls, no windows, of the adjacent house. No one overlooks my garden on any side, or can disturb my views. Sweet .....

Now I'm sure you all are wondering, where is the Templar's Treasure? Of course, I will be looking for it. I would be happy with a few pottery shards or better yet a roman coin. There has to be some stuff on this site, Inside the house itself there is an area that has what appear to be two thickesses of interior wall, about two feet thick total, which rise above the vaulted caves below, and I suspect that portion of the house predates the rest of it, or at least those walls were reused in the building of the current house. So I've got another old house to fix up ....

FETE DU MIMOSA

February 14 was the Fete du Mimosa in Roquebrun. Its the first big event of the year, getting everyone in the mood for spring. It is timed to coincode with the blooming of the mimosa trees, a type of acacia that is endemic here. I even saw a few swallows, they're here awfully early. They were wearing fur coats and drinking hot toddys. Its still quite cold here, its been freezing every night. There is however, a lot of sun so the cold is bearable. Its warm in my house, and I dress warmly when I take the dogs on their long walk. They got to go to the Fete for a while, lots of other dogs and thousands of people. The streets were packed, and there were cars parked for about a mile up the road into the village. The village roads were all closed, as there was an artisan market on the main street and in the esplanade between the main street and the river, about a hundred sellers of everything from oysters (I got a dozen nice big ones for 4 euro), to strawberries, to bad jewelry. There were a number of nice things, and I also bought a watercolor of a village near here.

There was a parade, called a Corso here, which must be either Spanish, Italian or Occitan. It doesn't seem to be a French word. There were home made floats, trailers being pulled by decorated vineyard tractors, very charming. Several marching bands from surrounding communities, and a group of majorettes who I am sure were all over 35, and a few were probably 50plus. The final float was an old grape press, and tanks of wine on board being dispensed through a hose into cups which were handed out to the crowd. How great is that? The floats were fun too, children riding on them, and they were representing various civilizations. There was Egypt, Greece, the American Indians, the Vikings, and a couple of others -- the last one was the Gauls, and it was a big pig and some other figures, all poking fun at themselves, as these are the Gauls down here. There are a group of people dressed as bakers (see photo) and some may even be bakers, who dance around in circles and throw flour on everyone. Last year there was a contingent of vignerons in drag, but I guess it was too cold for them this year. I even went to the morning mass at the church, not having been to such a thing for about 40 years, since I went with my aunt once when I was visiting her. There are some very nice stained glass windows in the church, I don't know if they are old or not. The church is mostly from the 19th century, but has a small portion from the 14th. It was once an abbey with considerable land around it.

I think the Fete was a big success, I hope so. A bientot ....