Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - Childhood

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

Remember the folk dancing? These two children give it their fullest attention. Are they local children, who would have seen it all before, or visitors who have perhaps never seen a village festival like this. Folk dancing must seem a million miles from what they probably watch on television. Are they loving it or wishing they were listening to rap music?

"There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.”
- Elizabeth Lawrence

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - Don't!

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

Don't - please - don't restore the facade of this cottage. Look at those wondrous colours and textures - perfection.

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - Window Decor

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

The sun picks out a few heads of wheat in a Sainte Agnes' window - and on the volets (shutters) we see drawings of lavender to celebrate the festival.

It's charming to see villagers decorate their homes and so participate in the Fête de Lavande.

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - the Soap

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

You don't have to go to a Fête to buy Savon de Marseille. It's famous in France, made by hand and usually with olive oil.

The formula of this famous soap was regulated by Louis XIV in the XVIIth century and by the XIXth century Marseille had 90 soap factories. Since 1950 that has declined.

The soap you see in the main photo is made from the Aleppo pine tree and includes 20% bay tree oil.

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - the Glass Artist

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

As you walk through the village, you see this beautiful shop. Enter and you are in a world of glass wonders. Frédéric Pélissier is a true artist in glass. Once inside his enchanting shop you are surrounded by colour, light, reflections, beauty. Just take a look at his website to see.

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - the Old Lintel

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

Let's wander the village for a bit. We'll go back to the Fête.

Here we see an old and weathered lintel in a tiny back street. I wonder how many lives, how many generations, have passed through this doorway.

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - the Philandering Husband

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

Each folk dance tells a story. In this one four women dance around one of the husbands (the philanderer) and eventually attempt to tie him up (see the strings in the smaller photo). There is an exchange of flowers - note the woman's expression.

In the main photo, the wife beats up her husband.

In the end, of course it all ends happily with each wife dancing with her respective husband. Not quite real life, I feel...

Of course this is my interpretation of the dance - it could mean something totally different!

The women also carried poles with sheep's wool on the end (see smaller pic) - I don't know the significance of this. Perhaps to bash the philanderer's head and not show any marks!

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - the Folk Dancers

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

Folk dancing just as it was in medieval times.

Tomorrow - the Philandering Husband.

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - the Baby Donkey

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

Meet 4-day old Lavandin and her mother, Gaby. As you can see in the notice, Lavandin was conceived during the Fête de Lavande 2008 and was born 4 days before the Fête de Lavande 2009.

In the lower photo you see a stall just behind Lavandin and Gaby - yes, it's the one selling the donkey sausages...

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - Donkey Sausages

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

At every village Fête you'll find beautiful cheeses and saucissons (a sort of salami sausage).

In the smaller photograph you see saucissons made of sanglier (wild boar) and ane (donkey) - perhaps not to everyone's taste and certainly not the 4-day old donkey and her mother who were not 5 feet away. I didn't tell them...

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - the Distillation

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

In the main photo, we see the two 400-year old lavender stills (alambic in French). The still on the right makes double the amount of lavender oil to the one on the left.

120 kilos of the cut and dried lavender + 70 litres of water goes into the still. It's sealed tightly with the 'blue band' and the fire is lit.

With heat comes condensation. Vapour from the lavender rises into a coil tube, which is cooled by water. It condenses again and is recuperated through a separator (1st small photo) producing essential oil and distilled water.

When 40 litres of distilled water is collected, the lavender is exhausted and needs replenishing, otherwise it starts to burn.

When the essential oil is drained off, the distilled pipe is blocked off, and the copper pipe is turned downwards (2nd small photo)

Approx 250 mls is yielded from 120 kilos of wild lavender. (1000 kilos of lavender yields 2 litres of wild lavender oil.) Wild lavender oil is more expensive than cultivated oil. 10 ml sells for €5.00. It's considered to be far stronger and is used for medicinal and culinary purposes. In the 3rd smaller pic we see the oil being bottled and finally, the village stall where it is sold at the Fête de Lavande.

Please click on any of the photos to enlarge. Thanks so much to my friend Anita, who lives in Sainte Agnès and took all the photographs and also provided such an easy explanation.

If you missed Anita's photograph of Julien harvesting the lavender please see yesterday's post or click on the link. You can also read of the charming little house that Anita has for holiday rentals in Sainte Agnès - ideal for visitors to Menton who would like to stay in a medieval hill village.

Note: I've posted more photos than usual today but it seemed necessary to explain the process.

Photos: Anita Bingeman ©

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande - the Harvest

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

The lavender is harvested one week before the Fête de Lavande, and as you can see Julien is cutting it with this small scythe. The lavender is wild (not the same as the cultivated varieties we grow in pots or gardens) and is cut from the mountains around Sainte Agnès.

The cutting started at 6 a.m. with 20 villagers turning up to help, including my friend, Anita, who took this photograph. Anita lives in Ste. Agnès and apart from being a super photographer, is a fantastic horsewoman, and was a noted breeder of Arabian horses in the past.

This year 800 kilos of lavender was cut, put into sacks, lugged down to the village (those sacks are heavy) and later spread out in the Salle des Fêtes to dry till the following weekend. Tomorrow we'll see the stills and learn how the essential oil is extracted.

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Anita has an absolutely charming little house she rents to visitors, so if anyone is coming to Menton on holiday and would like to stay in Sainte Agnès, let me know and I'll put you on to Anita.

Photo: Anita Bingeman ©

Ste. Agnès: Ruelle

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

An ancient alleyway - stones shiny with the patina of age. Hold on to the rail - it's easy to slip...

The French word for street, of course is 'rue.' Alleyway is 'ruelle.' Isn't that lovely and logical? It also means the 'space between the bed and the wall.'

Ste. Agnès: Fête de Lavande

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

Each year the medieval village of Sainte Agnès holds a lavender festival. We'll not only take a look at the Fête but also wander this lovely village which, incidentally, is the highest coastal village in Europe - 780 metres above sea level. As you can imagine it has a stunning view of the Mediterranean.

This pretty display is opposite the village glass maker and we'll be visiting this talented artisan too.

Looking back into the archives, where there are a few posts on Sainte Agnès (September 2007), I see I posted photographs that would be dumped in the 'trash' bin now. Probably that's true for many of us - we buy a better camera, we learn to improve our photography, and we continue our City Daily Photo journey.

The Ruins of the Château

So here we are at the ruins of the Château. I was surprised, when I got here, to see a man selling entrance tickets. I don't mean I was surprised that tickets were on sale, but that someone should be way up here, all day long, waiting for the few visitors who come here. Perhaps it's a way of guarding artifacts.

The first record of Sainte Agnès (Sancta Agneta) was in 1150, when it was ruled by the Counts of Ventimiglia - in 1258 it passed to the Counts of Provence.

THIS WEBSITE gives the full history of the village, right back to Neolithic times - but you need to read French. If you don't speak French, it really is worth looking at tho just for the photographs as you go through the various centuries.

Walk to the Château ruins

Here's a collage of the walk to the Château. It's quite a hike and we'll need to stop for a rest every few minutes - at least I did. Start at 'top left' with the sign. The second photo shows a quite gentle walk, but then it gets steeper (bottom left) and we finish at cross. Thank goodness for the iron railings! Tomorrow: the ruins. Phew...time for a rest I think.

Bird's eye view

Here we are looking down on the village of Sainte Agnès. I'm about half way up the track to the ruins of the château. To the right of the photo, you can see the cemetery. That in itself is higher than the village. Come back tomorrow and share the walk with me. It's steep!

Renovation

Renovating a house in a hill village is no easy task. All the materials need to be brought up from Menton or Nice. All rubble needs to be removed and taken down the valley. In the old days, of course, donkeys were used. See the donkey track from Sainte Agnès to Menton - a two-hour journey.

Nowadays, renovation means the workmen need to walk up and down the narrow, steep streets, moving materials, little by little. In addition, if scaffolding is used, then inevitably you'll need your neighbour's house to provide some of the support. Hopefully you get on with your neighbour!

And the cost of all this - well, it's not cheap - and it's slow.

Église Notre-Dame-des-Neiges - 2

Churches in most of the Mentonnais hill villages, have a simple exterior, but surprise us when we go inside. Here you see three views of the interior of the 16th century church in Sainte Agnès.

Église Notre-Dame-des-Neiges

The parish church of Sainte Agnès, near to the entrance to the village, is dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows. You can see the entrance on the right of the photo. Do come back tomorrow and I'll take you inside this beautiful little church and show you the wonders therein.