Discover Uzès

Territoire in Uzès (3/3)

In this and last instalment, a private visit of the Duché (the castle), the only artisanal coffee roaster in France and a pretty unique snail farm in Montaren.

Territoire à Uzès - Partie 3 (30/09/2011) par TVSud

Territoire in Uzès (2/3)

In this second instalment: the national stud farm, more about the history of Uzès and truffles in Uzès.

Territoire à Uzès - Partie 2 (30/09/2011) par TVSud

Discover the Villa St Victor

From Paris Update, October 2007, by Heidi Ellison

The Villa Saint Victor, a hilltop château-hotel in Provence, is not the ancestral residence of Renaud and Stéphane Vieljeux’s family, but the two brothers, together with Stéphane’s wife, Marie-Aude, have turned it into what feels like a real home.

Located in the village of Saint-Victor-des-Oules, a short drive from Uzès, one of Provence’s most beautiful cities, the 18th-century château had already served as a bed and breakfast before the brothers bought it in 2004, but it needed serious refreshing. Within just a few months, the Vieljeux, with the help of family and friends, redecorated it from top to bottom in the elegant style of the best French stately homes, bringing in great quantities of the family’s antiques and paintings. Now each of the 18 bedrooms, all of them named after a family member, is decorated in a completely different style, some more masculine and others more feminine, with handsome fabrics, antique furnishings, paintings and etchings.

While Renaud already had experience in the business, having owned a bed and breakfast on the other side of Uzès, Stéphane, who had been working as a banker in Geneva, made a total change of lifestyle, seeing the hotel as a chance to realize his dream of learning to cook. He and Marie-Aude moved their six children to Uzès, and while Stéphane cooks dinner for guests on most evenings and the traditional lunch on Sunday, with mostly fine results, Renaud and Marie-Aude run the hotel.

Together, they have mastered the art of making people feel at home without intruding on their privacy, a delicate balance that is hard to achieve (ever been to one of those bed and breakfasts where you are expected to have a drink or even dine with the owners and/or the other guests – an experience that can range from highly charming to deadly boring?). The comfy, handsomely decorated common rooms on the ground floor, for example, offer a variety of different-sized spaces and nooks where guests can choose to mingle or find a private corner to chat or have a drink.

Adding to the feeling of a family home are the presence of two dogs, the gregarious and affectionate Octave, a white Lab I defy anyone not to fall in love with, and the more aloof and aristocratic Titus, a dachshund.

Aside from the 16 rooms in the château, the hotel has two small houses suitable for families on the grounds of its small park (whose non-native palm trees add an exotic touch) and a wheelchair-accessible room with a separate entrance. Their decor is not as grand as the rooms in the château, but even the latter are works in progress. The bathrooms, while perfectly functional and fitted with large bathtubs, are not up to the high standards of the rooms, and some details still await attention – a lamp’s electrical wires running across a tabletop, for example, or bolts sticking out of the wall in one of the WCs. These little imperfections may add to the feeling of being at home, but they should be taken care of in a hotel.

The Villa Saint Victor can accommodate groups, seminars, parties and events. A tent-like structure in the garden can hold up to 100 people. Renaud can also organize themed excursions – focusing on food, tourism or music, for example – according to guests’ interests. A swimming pool on the grounds is welcome in the hot Provençal summers, and tennis courts are available in the village.

Villa Saint Victor: Place du Château, 30700 Saint Victor des Oules. Tel.: 04 66 81 90 47. Rates: €70-€230 per night. Closed in January and February.

A little pre-harvest video: dropping fruit

From our friend Amy Lillard over at La Gramière, a very interesting little video about what actually happens in the vineyards...

The truffles festival in Uzès

A few weeks back, on the third Sunday of January (14/16^th), the annual truffle market was held in Uzès. Read the full description of her day at the event on Angela’s blog Provence calling there.“It is Sunday and with nothing better to do, we pile the dogs into the car and head off. It’s a glorious day, the sky, clear and blue, and the sun bright enough to warrant sunglasses. The road takes us through vineyards on either side of the road, the vines brown and twisted, some pruned, some waiting to be pruned. The roads are empty but when we get to Uzes there is nowhere to park, every single space is taken; on a Sunday in winter? Truffles are obviously big business. » Enjoy the full post (and photos) here (or below).

The previous Saturday, gastronomic events were organized in many restaurants of Uzès, with meals cooked by local “five-star chefs”, who are mixing these truffles into everything:  soufflés, noodles, pheasant ragout, desserts, you name it – the black mushroom is added to everything. You couldn’t step into any restaurant in town without being hit by the strong and unique smell of truffles. As usual, most seats in the restaurants were snapped up month ago. The guests tend to book their visits in advance and some do not hesitate to travel thousands of miles to participate in this celebration of this mushroom. This year some of the fans came from New Zealand.

"These dinners are one of the highlights of the truffle week-end in Uzès, like a showcase of our expertise. We want to develop a tourist industry around the truffles – along with our local wines and historical heritage in Uzès," explains Michel Tournayre (left), president of the regional federation of truffle producers.

For those interested, researchers have recently unearthed the secrets of the black truffles, read more.

Peta's adventures in Uzège and Languedoc

I was looking for a well fimed, well researched documentary about Uzège and our part of the South of France. Thanks to Peta Mathias, we're about to enjoy 6 full hours ot it! I cant wait to see the real thing. Until then, here's a trailer:

Mind altering cuisine, by Lisa M.

Peta Mathias' November report about a special chef in Vers-Pont-du-Gard:

Every year when I am in France I try to have different guest chefs demonstrate at my culinary week in Uzès. There is a tiny, beautiful young woman in my area, hidden away in a cute village called Vers, in a restaurant blessed with the address, Place de la Madone. If you’ve got the Virgin in on the act, you’re already rocking. Lisa is a well known top class chef, who used to run the kitchen at the Chateau St-Maximin nearby. Now she has opened her own place in an ancient nunnery with four gorgeous rooms upstairs to stay in should you wish. The decor is austere but very beautiful and restful.

It is a rather intimate and unusual thing for top chefs in France to let you into their kitchens so eleven of us approached the discrete exterior of the restaurant with hopeful hearts and bated breath. We were greeted with home made croissants and coffee then slipped into the kitchen to have our minds altered about food forever. None of us will ever look at a chicken in the same way. Lisa is about purity and respect, even tenderness, towards primary ingredients, chemistry, how your body reacts to food and ayervedic eating principles. Her cuisine is unusual, light and surprising. She doesn’t use recipes (I wish I could get away with that) but here are some of her wisdoms:

• She eats little artichokes raw - sliced finely on the cross and kept in lemon juice, water and salt.
• For stocks, she uses only the bones and off-cuts of the animal concerned - no vegetables or herbs. At the end of a chicken stock she might slide in a cloud of soy sauce and curry powder.
• Her two culinary heros are Michel Bras and Pierre Gagnaire.
• When working with chicken she handles it gently and as little as possible. When she wants to cook chicken breasts, she does it still on the carcass so the skin side is roasted and the bone side is tender and undamaged by harsh cooking. Then she slices it off the bone.
• When cooking or blanching vegetables she doesn’t use salt but sprinkles it on once they have been drained.
• She cooks mushrooms (giroles in this case) without water, adds finely chopped fresh ginger, then a splash of Noilly Prat. She covers them and cooks for two minutes then places them in a bowl with grated lemon rind, a little lemon juice and sea salt.

Lunch is a series of small dishes, each one more delicate than the last. My favourite was a little ramekin of scallops, enotoki mushrooms and asparagus floating in a sauce (I’m guessing) of lemon, coconut milk and tarragon. This was accompanied by coconut and cumin bread. Part of the dessert was a very clever chocolate popsicle made by freezing chocolate fondant in tiny ice-cube trays then dipping in chocolate and freezing again. You could say we were transported on angel wings to loftier places than our cumbersome earthly bodies.

• Lisa M Restaurant and Maison d’Hote
• ph 00 33 4 6622 9212
• email lisam3@orange.fr
• 3 place de la Madone
• Vers 30210 Pont du Gard

Discover Saint Maximin, near Uzès

Saint Maximin, population 640, is one the "chic-est" villages of Uzège - say some. At any rate, it's a very pretty village, like most Uzège villages. Overlooking the Alzon valley to the South, St-Maximin is very sunny indeed. It was fairly small in 1384 (5 families) - but the castle is much older than that - it was sold in 1156 by the king of France to the bishop of Uzès. Later, it was part of the estate of d'Argenvilliers, Jean Racine's uncle. Racine, the famous writer, remembers in 1661-1662, the walks throught the garrigues to the house, a "mile and a half from Uzès. In St-Maximin, don't miss La Table de Julien (see the review below).

Flea market in Uzès, organic market in St-Quentin, and L’Oustal café

Peta Mathias' October report: market stories, and the recipe for a delicious autumn salad.

Uzès has a puces (fleamarket) every Sunday morning in the carpark at the roundabout leading to Avignon and Nîmes. One morning I found 2 antique wooden mandolines for slicing vegetables, a specially designed silver holder for toast and foie gras (instrument of my dreams), an old tagine dish and a Moroccan vase. Friends have strolled away with old beds, furniture, lamps, Dior handbags and linen. Puces in this area are great but the Uzès one is really good because it’s cheap and you absolutely do get bargains. You could find antique daybeds, kitchen equipment, fountains, lace dresses, paintings, a dinner date, the latest gossip, old comics, evening shoes .... all with the October sun shining down on your warm autumn coat. Most stuff is laid out on the ground on a blanket and some is artfully arranged on tables and the best part is, no-one hassles you. It’s all very relaxed and typically southern and when you’re done, you grab your friends and meet up for a restoring crème (coffee with milk) at L’Oustal café in the Place aux Herbes.

Every so often, like on the 14 of July (Bastille Day) Uzès treats itself to a really fine, up-market brocante (second hand and antiques market). The car park on the Avenue de la Libération is blocked off and reborn as a sparkling wonderland of antiques, crockery, mountains of old lace, embroidered linen sheets, bedspreads, nighties, tablecloths, underwear and old books. French people absolutely adore ‘chiner’ - trawling for old treasures, pouring over old books, manuscripts, cutting boards, posters and cards. You could be looking at something interesting on a lonely, unattended stall then suddenly from the ether you hear, “Quinze euros madame.” You look up, and there the stall holders are, close by, indulging in lunch. And not just quickly, furtively snacking – the antique table is set up with cutlery and glasses, there is food like roast chickens, pâté, saucisson and salads and the wine and bread are stacked up on some precious, antique bedspreads. If you bought afore mentioned table, they would just move their feast over to the piano top.

One of the prettiest towns in the Languedoc

This article is based on an earlier FrenchEntrée article written by Dean Jennings.

If you want to know what the French think of Uzès, just ask them! It was described to me by a young Nimoise as “la ville la plus belle de toute la région!” - and a short visit to Uzès will show you that she's not the only one who thinks so!

Uzès is a small town in the Gard department of the Languedoc, in Western Provence, rich in charm and appeal, which lies in its beautifully unique architecture, and its Provencal market in la Place aux Herbes which tantalises all the senses with its vibrant colours, tastes and smells. Uzes benefits today from a decision taken in 1958 by French Cultural Affairs minister Malraux, to preserve and restore it to its original charm and condition. As a result the tiny market town is full of well-maintained extraordinary and unique original architecture, retaining all its original narrow alleyways, courtyards and squares. It has become the home of delightful, specialised, little boutiques selling locally produced arts and crafts, and regional produce, not to mention, of course the obligatory cafés and terrasses. Surrounded by the gentle countryside of vineyards basking in the warmth of the Provencal sunshine, it is easy to see people continue to adore Uzès.

Needless to say, with all its picturesque charm, Uzes has been high up on the list of tourist hotspots in the region, and has already been "found" so to speak. For those of you who would shudder at the thought of sharing so marvellous a ville with other anglais, you can rest assured that this isn’t actually a version of little England. But, on the other hand, it isn’t an entirely typical French town either. It is in fact a remarkably diverse town with many other nationalities living in and around it.

One person who lives there told me that Uzès is a little like living in Rome, where the culture, the feel and the city is affected by the mix of other nationalities, including the French. One can find the French more open to sharing this mélange of difference cultures than perhaps in other parts of the region. Uzès also boasts a strong cultural life, with concerts, exhibitions, theatre and fairs all year round.