Serena, Serena, where you been so long?
Oh, Serena, where you been so long?
I ain’t had no lovin’, since you’ve been gone.

With apologies, and thanks, to Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, Eric Clapton, Mississippi John Hurt and everyone else who’s done Corinna, Corinna, or Alberta – it always came to mind when I climbed into the VCCA’s venerable old 1996 Nissan Serena van.

In many ways, she was a really horrible vehicle. There was no air conditioning. In the 40°C summers of SW France many overheated bodies made the trip from Toulouse airport or the gare in Agen to Auvillar in Serena’s steamy confines, made even toastier by the midship diesel engine between the two front seats.

For years running, the Serena was reported to be the slowest accelerating vehicle sold in Great Britain, taking 27.8 seconds to go 0 – 60 mph. Also in England, an automobile television show commentator remarked “…the Nissan Serena was about as seductive as a skip and as desirable as an old shoe.” The radio was long gone, as were the speakers, the driver’s sun visor and most of the seat covers. The right side had been caved in by North Americans getting the French driving experience, and if you look closely in the enlarged version of the first photo you can see that it’s a broomstick holding the trunk lid open.

But – Serena hauled group after group of artists all over the rolling SW France countryside – to the markets in Valence d’Agen, to Pech Merle, to the Lot and St. Cirq-la-Popie, to the airport and the train station, and up that steep hill to the village. When the volcano in Iceland caused flight delays and the chartered bus was long gone, Serena hauled a professor and five students and all their luggage, with me driving, from the airport to the residence in Auvillar. She had the tightest little turning radius of anything I’ve driven, which got us out of a few narrow dead ends.

She wormed her green way into the hearts of all who rode in her. You certainly couldn’t feel like a pretentious étranger in her, more like someone who had been here too long and had gone native.

Last week, just after the end of Cheryl’s Plein Air workshop, former directrice Lucy drove some workshop attendees to the train station in Agen. On the way back she hit a slippery spot on the rain slicked road, slid to the edge, then she and Serena rolled over three times, coming to rest right side up in the ditch. Lucy was uninjured and, after a several hour exam at the hospital, Jean-Phillipe took her home.

Serena, on the other hand, will never recover. Some say it was her upcoming appointment with the Controle Technique, others say it was a fitting end to an adventurous life. All I know is that we really miss her and we’re struggling to find a replacement. For all her faults, she could squeeze eight people into a very small package, and still have a little room for market bags or easels.

Serena looks pretty sad in the wrecker’s barn near Saint Sixte. Seeing the windshield split in two right in front of the driver’s seat, it’s miraculous that Lucy escaped unscathed. I couldn’t help but notice that two out of the ten or so wrecked vehicles in the barn were ambulances, and was very glad Lucy hadn’t needed one.

Having to unexpectedly replace Serena is putting a big strain on the VCCA-France budget. If you’ve had a ride in her or have a fond thought about her, you could help out at the VCCA donations page. Just type “Serena” in the Name of Program box. If everyone she carried sent $50 or $100 we’d have a replacement in no time.

We initially heard about the exhibition at Gramont from Dominique and Thierry when we were at Domaine de Thermes to pick up some wine – they had a poster up for the opening, “vernissage” en français, and we agreed to go.

Gramont is a tiny village up on a hill about 20 km south of Auvillar with a cluster of houses, a church, and an imposing 12th century château. Next to the chateau is le Petit Feuillant, a lovely old auberge serving Gascon cuisine. Gramont is right of the edge of Gers, the next department to Tarn et Garonne, and Thierry tells us the village is more Gers in feel than Tarn et Garonne. We had thought the exhibit would be in the Château itself, but into the Auberge we went, then down a narrow twisting staircase to “le cave”. It was easy to imagine more levels of basement underneath, perhaps hiding partisans, or barrels of wine, or even Jews in years gone by, but on this evening it houses a nicely presented exhibit and a lively crowd. The French love to stand and drink and talk, and this evening was no exception.

The artist is Phillipe Gaillard, a painter from Montabaun, and he’s exhibiting a series of collage/paintings done on bread wrappers depicting high fashion models, each with an exotic animal. He moved around the crowd, making contact with everyone, patiently listening to my attempts at French. We met quite a few people there, including a French opera singer / sculptor, a local painter and a very sardonic and hilarious Irish expat, all of whom we hope to involve with the VCCA program here.

The auberge above the show looks pretty interesting. Le Petit Feuillant serves locally produced food as much as possible, and offers five course menus complete with aperitifs and wine for 17-35€, tax and tip included. I asked our new Irish aquaintance what she thought of the food there, and in spite of her “duck, duck, foie gras, duck” response, I think we’re going to have to check it out. The ambiance is farm kitchen table, very inviting, and I’m looking forward to it.

Last year, 2009, we arrived at Moulin à Nef in Auvillar in mid-July, right in the heat of the summer, so we were anxious to experience Spring. Perhaps the splashiest signs were the fields of rapeseed, colza en français, that we saw from the train. Fields carpeted with brilliant yellow flowers that grew taller as we worked our way further south. It was too warm to wear our jackets as we got off the train in Agen, and everywhere you looked it was green and lush, or freshly tilled and starting to sprout. The vines at Domaine de Thermes, so verdant and heavy with fruit last fall, look stripped naked, highlighted by a field of colza in the background.

We had missed the cherry blossoms, already finished, and the apple blossoms were in their last days. In the mornings we heard songbirds that we hadn’t heard the year before, and each day seemed a little warmer than the previous. We were both working hard to get MaN ready. There had been an enthusiastic group of people doing construction in La Cebo, the studio building, including former directrice Lucy Anderton, VCCA President (and artist) Pinkney Herbert and his wife Janice, and VCCA board member (and artist) Craig Pleasants. They had done a huge amount of work, but there were some finishing touches needed and lots of cleanup. The grass on the hill was 2 feet tall, plants needed moving and arranging, and we pressure-washed every square metre of concrete.

As much as we were enjoying the physical delights of spring in SW France, we were even more overwhelmed by the incredibly warm and friendly welcomes from all the people we had come to know in the previous season. It was wonderful to renew friendships and catch up on what had happened over the winter. It had been a hard winter in Auvillar – three different snowfalls and extended periods of very cold weather had left all the permanent residents longing for spring, and I suspect that seeing us back in town was a harbinger of sun and warm evenings on the patio that were now very close at hand. The days continued to warm, and we could do our outside work in shorts and t-shirts with temperatures in the mid-20s celsius (mid-70s fahrenheit).

Finally we got MaN to a state where we could convince Cheryl to take a day off, so off we went for a day trip to Rocamadour and a visit to a couple of Cahors wineries along the Lot. With us were my brother Rick and his wife Pam, visiting from California. We had put them to work too – Rick mowed lawn and did some painting, and Pam helped Cheryl move furniture and equipment and arrange the studios. We approached Rocamadour from the south, via Carlucet. It’s a very dramatic approach, quite different from the more normal route via L’Hospitalet. We wandered though the whole village, from the valley floor to the ramparts of the château. We were a little surprised, after walking the stations of the cross path from the village up to the château, to find a huge parking lot at the top filled with cars and RVs. It was hot that day, 27°C (80°F), equalling or surpassing the high temperature records for the date for many cities and villages in sw France.

Well, that warm and lovely weather was last week. On Saturday the rain started, and then over the next few days it turned cold. For a while they even had a chance of snow in the forecast. On Tuesday the low was 5°C and the high was 6° (41-43°F) with strong winds and 3+cm of rain – more than an inch. We followed an old French lady walking up to the public market in Valence d’Agen – her umbrella blew out and she muttered something like “Merde! Comme novembre.” It’s still cold and raining as I write now on Wednesday evening. La Garonne is up about a metre from where it was the other day when we were watching the frogs mate, and it’s flowing hard downstream, the first time we’ve seen that. Usually you can’t really tell which direction is downstream. It’s forecast to warm up a bit by the weekend – sure hope so, the first group of students arrives Sunday from JMU to stay in the Maison Vieilhescazes which doesn’t have any heat…

It’s easier to pack when you don’t have any luggage.

It started at YVR when, part way into the boarding, they suddenly stopped without an announcement. After a while we saw the early-boarders come back off the plane and knew something was up, but it was a few minutes more before we heard about the volcano. KLM announced there would be a delay of an hour or more while they figured things out – finally they boarded us 90 minutes later and away we went.

Cheryl and I are on our way back to Auvillar for a second season for her as Resident Director of Moulin à Nef, the artists residency in southwest France of the Virginia Centre of the Creative Arts. Last year we arrived in mid-July, so we’re looking forward to seeing our first late spring in Tarn et Garonne.

Back on the plane, they announced that the ash cloud was over Scotland and Northern England, and that they would be altering course to the south and then turning north up the channel toward Amsterdam. And that Schiphol, the airport in Amsterdam, was closing right after our arrival, with all connecting flights cancelled til further notice. We’d always wanted to see Amsterdam and it looked like we’d be getting our wish.

No one at any of the counters in the airport seemed to know anything, so after an hour or so of rugby scrum we shoved the extra bag in a storage locker, found the metro station and took the 15 minute train ride into Amsterdam. It was 6pm when we arrived. The first hotel we checked was full, but we soon found a one-star with some room, one night only. We were slowly beginning to get a sense that this situation could get quite a bit more serious than we first thought. I spent an hour or so online trying to rebook to Toulouse, even had a rep from the airline on Skype, but the signal was poor, he couldn’t understand me, and we had to give up.

Finally out into the streets for a walk and a look around. It’s pretty tacky-touristy in the few blocks closest to Centraal Station, but it changes quickly, and the loveliness of the buildings and the canals is striking, even at night. We found a place to eat, discovered they had a duo at the mike playing some South American guitar, had a nice Argentinian Malbec, made friends with the musicians and managed to suppress all those worries about how we might actually get to Auvillar, and where our luggage might be.

That was Thursday night – as I write it’s Saturday late morning, and we’re among the lucky ones who managed to find train tickets – we’re on our way to Paris for the night. Jetlagged, I had woken up in the middle of our night in Amsterdam and went online looking for information and alternatives – found that the airport was still closed to all flights, but had no luck reaching KLM or discovering what they were advising their passengers. I also looked at train tickets, not realizing there was a train strike in France. There were a couple of options available, but they seemed very expensive, and we were still hopeful to make use of our Toulouse boarding passes.

Complicating matters was the fact that my laptop battery was depleting and we didn’t have an adaptor with us. I tell everyone coming to Moulin à Nef to be sure to bring an adaptor, and here we were when we really needed one – without one. We decided to head back to the airport to find someone from KLM. On the train there we met a couple of young guys from Vancouver who had tickets to the Liverpool football match today – Saturday – and who were hoping to pick up their luggage and somehow get to England in time. I can’t imagine how they made out – KLM wasn’t releasing any luggage – it had all been stored somewhere in mountains waiting for the planes to start flying.

Schiphol airport was amazingly quiet. A few people sleeping here and there but no long unhappy lines like we had expected. The KLM departures area was a sea of friendly looking faces all dressed in KLM blue, and we quickly had one to ourselves. She explained that most of northern Europe was still closed and that Schiphol would stay closed to all flights until at least 6pm that night (Friday). This time was something like Khadafi’s famous “Line of Death” – it kept getting pushed back further and further. It’s now Sunday morning, and the maybe-fly time is now 6pm tonight.

Back to Schiphol – the KLM rep told us that Thalys, the Netherlands train system, would exchange our Toulouse-bound boarding passes on KLM for train tickets at no charge. That was the first piece of good news we had heard, even if it sounded a little too good to be true. We grabbed our extra bag from the locker and headed downstairs to the Thalys international ticket line. It was huge. A Thalys rep working the back of the line confirmed they would exchange boarding passes for tickets, and then suggested that we take the train an hour south to Rotterdam – the line would be much shorter and we’d be an hour closer to France. Looking ahead at the 6-8 hour lineup in front of me, this idea sounded brilliant.

It only took an hour in line at Rotterdam before the agent told us that they were NOT exchanging boarding passes for tickets – only if you had a ride and fly package before. And that there weren’t any seats available anyway. An hour of her searching on the computer found tickets only to Paris – nothing further south through Sunday. We bought the tickets to Paris for the next morning and went looking for a hotel.

The Tourist Information office suggested a place called the Maritime Hotel, right on the water, a short tram ride away, 3-star, 60€ with breakfast. It was great. Filled with deep sea crewmen waiting for their ships and tourists waiting for their flights, it was adjacent to the spectacular Erasmus bridge. The bar was like an internet café with drinks – tables and outlets everywhere. We went online and somehow found train tickets Paris-Agen on Sunday, first class only, on the IDTGV. We were very excited. With IDTGV tickets you have to print them yourself – by the time we checked with the desk about whether or not they could print them, the tickets were gone. Aaaaack! Searched again, this time there were 2 second-class seats, no first-class, we snapped them up, and that’s how we came to be on this train Sunday morning speeding south through the French coutryside.

Friday night in Rotterdam we walked from the hotel and found a comfy looking bar-restaurant called Granny’s Place, seemed apropos to our “living in one set of clothes” look. At the next table there was a guy wearing, what else, a Canucks jersey. Turned out he was Ian from southwest Wales, part of an international crew that inspects pipe welds. Cheryl had been listening to their accents and had remarked how one of the English speakers didn’t sound like a Brit, and didn’t have any of the American-sounding characteristics, ergo he must be Canadian. From Vernon BC as it turns out. Ian rhapsodized, as the Welsh love to do, about the magical land of sw Wales, and how much he loved his Canucks jersey.

Saturday on the train to Paris we sat with a group of travelers whose various plans had all been dusted off by the volcano. Two brits were hoping to get to Calais to catch a ferry home and a woman from Detroit was trying to get to Spain, hoping to outrun the ash cloud so she could get home in time for her Mexican vacation next week. The Thalys trains offer hi-speed wireless internet for 6.5€ an hour (free in first class), and the woman from Detroit was deep in trying to book her next leg when her screen went blank – hour’s up.

It’s the same all over northern Europe – not since the war has there been this kind of disruption in travel. And there really isn’t a clear end in sight. The brits on the train said they had heard that this same volcano spewed ash for 3 years running back in the 1820s. Hopefully it clears up in the next few days and travel works its way back toward normal. Maybe we’ll even get our luggage. The really odd thing is that we haven’t seen any trace of the ash or the ash cloud anywhere.

All these thoughts were in my mind as we traveled south today toward Agen. I was just starting to type them in when WHAM! A heavy suitcase fell out of the overhead rack onto my head, then onto my glasses, then onto the laptop, then to the floor. The laptop went dead, my nose was bleeding and the young girl next to me looked horrified – it was her suitcase. The girl and I made a trip to the office of le controleur, where I got a bandaid, then back to try the laptop. Luckily it re-started fine, and so far so good.

In Auvillar now and able to post this entry. Thanks to Brian Lord for the title.

Our time here in Auvillar has gone by so quickly, just a few days now before we pack up our things and close up the buildings for winter and head back to Vancouver. We decided tonight to go to Sadoul de la Tour for dinner – Tuesday is pizza night and Carole and Olivier have been very friendly with us. They live upstairs over the restaurant and each night, when it seems likely there won’t be any new customers, they make themselves dinner and sit at one of the tables to eat. It’s a surprisingly charming practice – it makes us feel more like we’re at their house for dinner, and maybe it makes them feel a little bit like they’re out. Tonight Olivier isn’t here, he’s gone to be with his kids, so Carole’s on her own.

We order our pizzas and remember our first dinner here, on our first night in France way back in mid-July. It was hot and we were exhausted after the trip from Vancouver, but the outdoor patio was cool and the red wine had been chilled in the friggo, and it was all strange and wonderfully new. The pizzas are different here – Cheryl has ordered the Sadoul with ham, mushrooms and olives, and an egg right in the middle. Mine is the Fermière, usually with lardon (bacon) but tonight it came with jambon cru and little pots of chevre, the whole thing spritzed with honey and olives, with pits, on the top. With a demi of the house red, brulhois from the local Domaine de Thermes, the bill comes to 21€, tax and service compris. We chat with Carole after and say our goodbyes, “à l’année prochaine”, and it’s pretty melancholy.

Out the door and down the street to peek at the new gallery, just opened last week. It’s the fifth gallery in this little village of 950 or so, one gallery for every 200 residents. It’s dark and we can’t see much, so off we go through the old heart of the village toward home. There’s not a soul around and the shutters are closed, even in the houses where we can hear voices or the TV inside. The winter population is probably half of what’s here in summer, many houses are empty, but the old village is still lovely. We make our way past La Halle, past La Baladin, and start down the steep hill to Le Port. Going past Un Autre Ailleurs we can hear Stephane working out a blues lick on his guitar – his partner Claire is still on the Chemin de Saint Jacques de Compostela and won’t be back until after we’re gone. A little further down the hill we hear accordian music – it’s the fellow at the corner who would sometimes play outside in summer while we were eating at Steph and Claire’s.

It’s impossible to not be enchanted by this walk, it seems like we’ve stepped a half century or more back in time, and we’re sad at the thought of leaving. A few more steps to where the two roads of Le Port come together we look right across the river to see the church at Espalais which always looks like it’s floating in the dark. The bells here go every hour, just loudly enough that we can hear them but not loud enough to intrude. It’s not hard to imagine what it would have been like when no one had a watch or a clock and just relied on the bells.

I was almost out of a prescription medication I take and decided the time had come to figure out how the getting prescription medication process works in France. There aren’t giant super-drug stores in France, at least none that we’ve seen, that are anything like the London Drugs at home, just these inviting small stores, always indicated with the green cross outside and the green “Pharmacie” sign, lit when open, not when closed.

I arrived with my bottle from home. First order of business was to step on their scale, which I hadn’t used since the first weekend we were here back in July – 86.5k, 1/2 k less than July. Incredible. Where did all the croissants and chocolatines and roquefort go? But I digress.

I took my bottle to the counter and the pharmacist said, after the requisite bon jours, “Oh, monsieur, il faut que vous avez une ordonnance.” Then, knowing I’m not French, she said “prescription” in English. “Il faut que vous allez chez le médecin”. In French I said “ok, I would see the doctor, how do I go about doing that?” “Un moment” and she disappeared into the back. I heard voices, she returned and ushered me into the back, et voilà, there’s the doctor. She looked at my bottle, and said “Venez avec moi” and off we went to her office, which is actually the next door up the street. We talked a little about the medicine, more about Canada and Vancouver, then walked back together to the Pharmacie.

At the counter it took just a minute to fill the ordonnance and she said “deux euros soixante-deux” which is easy enough to figure out when you see it written, but it sounds very close to douze euros soixante-deux, which is closer to what we might expect to pay in Canada. It took me a minute to realize that it was really only 2€62, about C$4.00. Total time from home, including a stop at the boulangerie for croissants and bread was less than 1/2 hour.

It’s cold this morning, 15th of October, here in Auvillar, very close to freezing. Venus is gorgeous in the morning sky, and the crescent moon is close by – it’s quite a sight. We’re less than 1° from the Greenwich meridian but on European Daylight time still, 2 hrs from GMT, so it’s dark enough for stars until after 7am. I hadn’t realized before we come here just how “night-sky deprived” we’ve been living in Vancouver for so many years now. Here there have only been a few nights in three months where we couldn’t see the stars, and the milky way lights up the sky in a way that you just never see in Vancouver.

Last weekend was the Marché de Potiers in Auvillar. Booths and displays filled La Place de la Halle and la Place de la Chateau with the most interesting and diverse ceramics you can imagine. And all set against the ancient and lovely buildings of Auvillar. One fellow set up a kiln out at the viewpoint and fired earthenware there. Potters came from hundreds of kms do display here – I think there might be a marché de potiers somewhere every weekend – most of the displays were made for travel.

Today the last of the artists for this year, Jamie Cat Callan, leaves Auvillar. Yesterday we took Denise Emanuel Clemens to Agen for a pre-dawn TGV direct to CDG airport in Paris. It’s going to be very quiet around here with these last two gone, they’re both very social and gregarious, and had charmed many in the village. Jamie had a bagful of her recent book French Women Don’t Sleep Alone, which she happily gave to women she met here. Most were mystified right off the top by the title, but were charmed regardless. Six more weeks for Cheryl and I – time to work on a couple of projects and do a little bit of traveling before heading back to Vancouver at the end of November.

All the real work had already been done in the weeks previous, but there were 16 or so rows of the old cabernet sauvignon still to pick, enough for one big cartful. Dominique Jollet Péraldi and Thierry Combarel, vignerons and owners of Domaine de Thermes, had set these aside for friends and neighbors, and three of us interested visitors from North America, to pick on Wednesday afternoon. With me were writers Jamie Cat Callan and Denise Emanuel Clemens.

The farm has been in their family for four generations, and until 25 years ago had focused on more current farm crops for this part of SW France – corn, wheat and sunflowers. Then they decided to make a switch to wine, and planted the cab sauv. They added other varieties – merlot, côt (better known in N.A. as malbec), tannat, fer servadou and cabernet franc. They produce a lovely rosé from the merlot and côt, and a few different reds culminating in the big dark chewy Cuvée Dothi, primarily cab sauv and tannat, with small amounts of fer servadou and merlot.

The appellation is Côtes du Brûlhois and it refers to an area on the hills on the south side of La Garonne between Layrac to the west and Auvillar to the east. It’s a VDQS – Vin Délimité de Qualité Supérieur – the “holding pen” for appellations working toward the top-level AOC status. It’s considered a level up from the “Vin du pays” so familiar in liquor stores in British Columbia, but these days quality doesn’t necessarily follow the appellation structure. Wine has been made in these hills since the 13th century, but few Brûlhois producers are large enough to have wine for export, and the appellation is not well-known outside the local area. We’ve found that we enjoy the whole offering from Domaine de Thermes, right from the easy-drinking mostly Merlot “Bag-in-box” rouge to the more complicated Cuvée Dothi. And in the heat of the summer, the rosé is welcome relief.

The vines that needed to be picked that day run down a hill. Picking starts at the top, and covers four rows. The tractor pulling the cart goes between the two middle rows, which have been spaced to exactly fit the tractor and cart. The pickers work the two rows on either side of the tractor, snipping the bunches of grapes with clippers and dropping them into buckets. As the buckets fill, pickers on the row closest to the tractor will take them and empty them into the cart. They put us novices on the furthest row so we only have to pick on one side of the vine, and don’t have to empty buckets.

Everyone picking knows everyone else, except for us three from the US and Canada, and they joke and chatter the whole time in a fast accented french that’s really hard for me to pick up. I find that I’m really enjoying the time – you have to bend over or kneel, so my back is reminding me how little actual physical work I’ve done lately, but all the rest is sublime. It’s overcast and cool, maybe 20-22C, but by the end of a row I can feel a bit of sweat. Thierry’s dog, I think Nana is her name, endlessly comes around a with a stick looking for some one to toss it, and I oblige occasionally. After the third pass down the hill we stop at the top for cold drinks, and more jokes and chatter.

We made another pass down the rows after our break, and that part of the job was finished. The wagon with the pickers and the cart with grapes made their way back to the winery. There, amid much shouting of directions from several different people, the cart was backed up a rickety ramp to the hopper. The hopper augurs the grapes into a centrifugal device that effectively removes all the stems, and the resulting mash of grapes, skins and juice gets pumped into a big holding tank. It didn’t work properly when Thierry started it up, so he fussed with it for a while with everyone looking on, then finally grabbed a big hammer. Whack! Whack! – and away it went. We all retired eventually, when the last of the slurry made its way into the tank, to the big table in the front of the house for a welcome glass of – what else – beer! It’s France, red wine is for meals.

“Amongst many other sites in America or Europe, Saint-Cirq has cast on me the only spell, the one that holds you forever. I have ceased desiring to be elsewhere.” André Breton

Sunday morning we put together a picnic lunch, grabbed a bottle of wine, and headed out for a field trip to Saint-Cirq-Lapopie and Pech Merle. With Cheryl and I were two of the three writers currently resident at VCCA-France, Jamie Cat Callan from Cape Cod, MA and Denise Emanuel Clemen from South Pasadena, CA. The third writer, poet Ellen Wise from Maryland, was driving with her husband Fred and they would meet us at Pech Merle. We had originally intended to start with Pech Merle and then go to Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, but when I phoned for reservations the morning times were all booked, so we reversed our plan.

Most people approach Saint-Cirq-Lapopie from the D662 along the Lot River, but we found a back-road route on the map, and turned right onto D911 just before crossing the Lot into Cahors. At Arcambal we turned onto the D8 and were treated to a spectacular top-of-the-hill road through scrub oak forests and tiny settlements that wound it’s way toward Saint-Cirq. We stopped and drove out into a field for a look over the valley. Eventually we came to what appeared to be a pay parking lot for campers and RVs – it had a spectacular view over the valley and our first look at Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, so we wedged onto the shoulder and hopped out for a look and a few photos.

We didn’t realize the whole parking situation at the time – there’s no parking in the village for visitors, but there are three lots available. This was the first of them, the second is right in the village, and the third is a km or so below the village down toward the river. In our happy ignorance we hopped back into the car, drove to the village and found a spot in the lot right across from La Poste. The village is impossibly lovely, with hilly, twisting streets too narrow for vehicles and an abundance of restaurants, galleries, museums and shops.

We stopped right away for coffee and then toured through the village, stopping in a few shops, and checking out the high viewpoint, the church with its hundreds of swallows swirling out of the bell tower, and winding our way through as many of the streets as we had time for. This is one of the most popular tourist destinations in this part of France, and it was getting busy on this last weekend of September.

It was tempting to leave the picnic in the van and sit at one of the many great looking terrace restaurants for lunch, but we were worried about missing our appointed time at Pech Merle, and weren’t exactly sure how long it would take to get there, so we headed out. Down the road from Saint-Cirq there’s a beautiful old stone mill by a lock on the river, but we didn’t stop. Pech Merle was actually only 15 minutes or so away, and there were lots of shady picnic tables for our lunch.

Lascaux is probably the most famous of the French cave-painting sites, but it’s been closed to the public since 1963. Pech Merle is still open to the public, though visits are limited – we had the sense we better see it while we could. The cave is extensive and though the tour guide speaks only French, there are English guidebooks available for the tour. The cave is immense and gorgeous with lots of interesting cave stuff – stalagtites and stalagmites and calcified pearls – and the experience of seeing the paintings is sublime. Especially the stenciled hands – and then to see the fossilized footprints in the mud. We loved it. Like Lascaux, it was discovered by teenaged boys in the very best Hardy Boys fashion. They don’t allow photography on the tours, so these photos are from the web.

Auvillar was treated to an extraordinary concert last night in the Halle. “Ventriloquist Acts of God”, a series of five poems by VCCA-France resident Ellen Wise has been set to music by composer (and VCCA fellow) Adolphus Hailstork. The night began with an introduction by Cheryl, then Ellen read her poems in English. Auvillar photographer Christophe Gardner then read the works in French. Those of us who hadn’t heard this before were overwhelmed by what came next – Pianist Jason Paul Peterson and soprano Agnes Fuller Mobley-Wynne performed the Hailstork compositions based on Ellen’s work. The two hadn’t collaborated before, but the power and range of Agnes’ voice and the drama and subtlety of Jason’s piano, and the way the two of them played off of each other made it a night to remember.

Performer bios found on the web -

Ellen Wise was born in Circleville, Ohio and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia. She holds degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University and Washington College. Five of her poems have been set to music by American classical composer Adolphus Hailstork. The collaborative work, named for her title poem, “Ventriloquist Acts of God,” was performed in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2004, and in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2006, and on Sept. 24, 2009 in Auvillar, Tarn et Garonne. She lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Agnes Fuller Mobley-Wynne is a Senior Lecturer in Voice at Old Dominion University where she has been a full time member of the voice faculty since 1991. She has also been on the voice faculties at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Community Music School, Christopher Newport University and The Governor’s School for the Arts. She has performed numerous works as a soloist with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Cantata Chorus, Norfolk Chamber Consort, Virginia Opera, Virginia Beach Symphony Orchestra, TodiMusicFest and the Continental Army Band. She recently performed abroad as a soloist and chorister with the Innsbruck International Choral Festival and in solo recital in Gmunden, Austria. Ms. Mobley-Wynne continues with her performing career as an active soloist and recitalist. Her teaching responsibilities at Old Dominion University include foreign language diction, vocal technique and repertoire for the voice department.

American concert pianist Jason Paul Peterson has captivated audiences around the globe, with solo and collaborative performances in Germany, France,Austria, Mexico, England, Slovenia, and the United States. Highlights include Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, two outdoor performances of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra for over 20,000 listeners; performances for embassies and consulates in Hamburg, Leipzig, and Ljubljana, a solo recital on the historic Dame Myra Hess Memorial Series in Chicago (broadcast live nationwide via radio, internet, and cable television), and a performance in the Rathaus of Torgau, Germany, for the Elbe Festival, commemorating the meeting of Soviet and U.S. troops in 1945. Upcoming concerts include solo and collaborative engagements throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.

The Leipziger Volkszeitung in Germany referred to a recent concert as “a piano concert of a completely special sort… absolutely an exquisite experience.” Dr. Peterson has been described as “a national phenomenon” (The Milwaukee Journal) and a musician of “Technical brilliancy who conveyed all the nuances in performance” (Polonaise Magazine).

Dr. Peterson was awarded a grant from the Chopin Foundation of the United States, Inc., and subsequently became the first-ever four-time recipient of the award. He is the winner of the 2006 Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition, the only American finalist in the 2001 Grace Welsh International Prize for Piano, and has also been awarded by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Most recently, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for study at the Franz Liszt Academy in Weimar, Germany. His latest CD was released December 2008 on the Sospiro label. In addition to the standard repertoire, Dr. Peterson is an advocate of modern and contemporary music, and has programmed works ranging from George Enescu and Samuel Barber to Verne Reynolds, Adolphus Hailstork, and William Bolcom. His collaborators have included members of the Cleveland and Boston symphonies as well as the opera companies of Chicago, Austin, and Santa Fe. Dr. Peterson has also helped establish the Curso de Canto program at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, where he returns each summer to accompany and coach vocal music.

Dr. Peterson holds a Bachelor of Music degree with high distinction from the Eastman School of Music, a Master of Music degree with highest honors from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Peabody Conservatory, where he held an assistantship in piano teaching. Principal teachers include Natalya Antonova, Anton Nel, Alexander Shtarkman, and Grigory Gruzman. He is currently a full-time faculty member at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.