Page 231 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Provence & The Côte d'Azur

FESTIV ALS IN PROVENCE  229

National Populair still performs
every year. Other venues
include the theatres and
cinemas, where films are
shown all day, the opera
house and churches.
Since the 1960s, the fringe-
style Avignon Le Off, brings
some 1,415 events to over 100
venues including many spec-
ially set-up theatres. Amateur
performers can be seen for free
in the main square outside the
opera, the place de l’Horloge.
Procession of the saints down to the sea in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
Alpes-de-Haute-
Provence
gypsies, Saint Sarah, known as Vaucluse
the Black Madonna. This takes Provence’s most particular flower
place in the picturesque town The Papal city of Avignon (see has its festival, the Corso de la
of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. pp170–72) is a splendid setting Lavande, in the mountain spa
The pilgrimage is a colourful for the foremost arts festival town of Digne-les-Bains (see p184).
occasion, brightened by tradi- in Provence, the Festival The colourful event, which
tional Arlesian costumes and d’Avignon. Theatre, lasts for four days, takes
gardian cowboys. The object of music, dance and film place in August and
their veneration is Saint Sarah, the are all covered in the celebrates the harvesting
Ethiopian servant. As legend has month-long programme of the crop. There are jars
it, she arrived on the shores of the which runs from July to and pots of honey and all
Camargue by boat. Also on board early August. More than a kinds of lavender produce
was Mary Magdalene, and the quarter of a million visitors for sale in the town, and
saints Mary Jacobe (sister of the travel to Avignon every year events centre on the main
Virgin Mary) and the elderly Mary to attend the largest arts street, boulevard Gassendi.
Salome (mother of the apostles festival in France. It is The climax of the festival
Saint James and Saint John). advisable to reserve Lavender from the comes on the last day
Sarah and the Marys decided hotels and tickets in festival in Digne when the flower-decked
to stay in the town and they advance to avoid floats, representing a
built an oratory on which the disappointment (see variety of themes, parade through
fortified church of Notre-Dame- pp226–7 for reservations). the streets, accompanied by
de-la-Mer was built. The saints The festival was established music, dancing and cheering.
started to preach the gospel in 1947 by the late Jean Vilar Preceding the floats is a
and the town became known whose aim was to bring theatre municipal truck spraying the
as the “Mecca of Provence”. to the masses. He devised a roads with litres of lavender
Saint Sarah stands serene number of productions to be water leaving the whole town
and excessively robed in the staged in the courtyard of the heady with the distinctive,
crypt. On the two nights and Papal Palace and his Théâtre sweet perfume.
days of celebration in May, she
is remembered with a Mass and
all-night vigil. The next day, the
statues of the saints are borne
down to the sea where the
Camargue cowboys take their
horses, neck-deep, into the
water and the Bishop of Arles
blesses the sea.
After the statues have been
returned to the church, the
great folk festival begins, with
rodeos, bull-running, horse
racing, Arletan dancing and all
manner of entertainment. The
gardians return for a smaller
celebration of Mary Salome in
October, when there is a pro-
cession around the church. Lively street performers at the summer Festival d’Avignon