Provence by Mobile Phone. Post Update

Rediscover this post with the addition of Provençal Roaming, an app by Paul Shawcross to add to the collection of useful travel applications for your mobile phone.

http://unique-provence.blogspot.fr/2012/06/provence-by-phone-apps-made-for-travel.html

Les Petites Tables, the perfect stop for a healthy Provençale lunch

In mid-July in Provence the heat can be pretty tough. If you’ve ever wondered where everyone is in the afternoon and why all the shutters of the houses are closed, the reason is simple, the heat. Air conditioning is a rare luxury in France and so the technique of opening the windows at night and closing them in the early morning guarantees a cool house for the rest of the day, and it works fine. 

The other dilemma in mid-summer is eating out at lunch time. If you indulge yourself in lavish menus and copious amounts of wine then your afternoon will be spent snoring under one of the many plane trees of Provence. This is a perfectly acceptable option once in a while, but if you want to make the most of your day then light, healthy and easy to digest options are what you are looking for. 

The menus at Les Petites Tables

As it happens I have just finished lunch in one such place, and have no desire to sleep under a tree or on the lovely leather sofa in my office. Today I had lunch at Les Petites Tables at the Eco Musée de L’Olivier in Volx, Haute Provence.

The Façade of the Eco-Musée de L'Olivier in Volx

Inside the Eco-Musée de L'Olivier

The Eco Musée is a fascinating museum on the culture of the Olive tree throughout the ages, and was created by Olivier Baussan who is also the man who created L’Occitane en Provence. Alongside the museum is a shop selling an incredible range of olive oils from across Provence, each one being personally selected by Olivier himself. You can also find produce ranging from locally made terrines to tapenades, flavoured salts, dried Provençale tomatoes, porcini flavoured pasta and even sardines from Port St Louis du Rhone and all of these are made by personal acquaintances of Olivier.

Just some of the wonderful produce in the shop

Soon you will even be able to book a weekend or a holiday through one of the best in the business, and meet some of the olive oil producers, and manufacturers of the countless delights on offer here. (All this coming soon) The travel agent creating the travel experiences with Olivier Baussan is me of course, though I assume you thought it couldn’t be anyone else! 

But back to my lunch… 

Josephine and Virginie hard at work in the tiny kitchen.

This little restaurant is run by Virginie and Josephine, from a tiny kitchen which is in the inside dining area. The principal is simple, each day Virginie creates salads, tarts, soups and cakes. You can choose to have the selection of the day for a mere 10€, which today was a risotto d’épautre (épautre translates as small spelt, a type of wheat, locally grown) a chick pea salad, a cucumber and melon salad, an eggplant caviar with cumin, a chilled courgette and coriander soup and green salad with shallots. 

The selection of the day

That’s quite a selection for such a small price tag and it was utterly delicious, copious without being too much and best of all you know that everything was prepared on the day, using exclusively local produce. Now I can hear some of you are saying to yourselves, that’s a great meal if you’re a vegetarian or a rabbit. You would of course have a point, although rabbits would never go for the eggplant caviar, or the soup. But Virginie and Josephine have the answer, as they also have on offer a wonderful selection of charcuterie, including dried hams, terrines, tapenades and local goats cheese (made by my good friend Thierry Yernaux*) also all locally produced. 

Our two plates, to be shared...

I was eating with a friend and we decided to take one selection of the day and the charcuterie to share, which was the perfect combination. You can also ask to have half and half on a plate as they are both the same price, 10€. For dessert I took a café gourmand, which is an espresso coffee with a selection of small portions of different desserts. It’s what you take to make you feel that you are not over indulging by having dessert and then a coffee, but the reality is you are, and often there is more on the plate of a café gourmand! Now I have several criteria for judging chefs, and one of them is desserts. Based on that, Virginie is a great chef! The selection I had was a slice of apricot tart, with melt in the mouth pastry, an almond and apricot cake, another little cup cake and two slices of a chocolate cake that was so smooth and moist and rich that I’m glad and yet sad that there was not more. 

Le Café Gourmand

The café gourmand was priced at 7€. All in all our meal came to 17€ each and on top of that we half a bottle of chilled rosé wine (necessary in summer) for 5.50€. For the quality and freshness of the produce and the culinary skills that transformed it I think it’s hard to find a better deal in the height of summer in Provence, or anywhere else for that matter. 

The outside eating area

So when you are traveling in La Haute Provence, come and visit the Eco Musée de L’Olivier, browse the shop for some fantastic genuine souvenirs and gifts, and take a seat at Les Petites Tables for lunch, assuring you a delicious break in your day’s discoveries at a very reasonable price, and the possibility to continue on in the afternoon without needing a nap. 

*See our post : Of Goats and Men and Banon Cheese

Provence by phone - Apps made for Travel

Mobile phone applications have become part of our lives, you can find answers to existential questions using Google as you walk down the street, check to see if a picture is hanging straight using Spirit level plus, take a photo of someone falling off their bike and send it via Twitter or Facebook for the entire planet to enjoy and laugh at another's misfortune. You can get your children off your back by downloading a mindless game for free, or even help them do their homework with an educational app. You can browse the internet, gaze at the stars, find a restaurant, a hotel, store your personal files, watch a film, find a recipe,  find a person or even  find your mobile phone if you lose it using built in mobile gps technology. Yes, there is indeed an application for nearly everything, as the advertisement says.

Now comes the problem with this plethora of useful technology.  Finding the one for you. You can of course find an application, look at similar applications and applications seen by those who liked the one you are looking at, and eventually you may find the one you are after, and so if you REALLY need an application to get on with your life, or you are bored sitting in a doctors waiting room you will go through the aforementioned process.

So what do you download when travelling? Tripadvisor is a good one without a doubt, Google maps is very handy, a weather app of course and there are many other mainstream applications which will help, but recently the development of very specific theme based apps have started to reveal themselves to those who know where to look.

So to save you the hassle of spending hours searching here are a few of the essential travel applications when coming to Provence.

Provence Gallery

This free application was created by Zevisit for the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regional Tourist Board. Wherever you find yourself in Provence, this application will find the nearest landscape that provided inspiration for one of it's great artists. You may well be familiar with the works of Cezanne, Van Gogh, Dufy, Gaugin and many more besides, and using this application you can see and even take a picture and upload it to an on-line gallery to share with other Provence Gallery users. Obviously when you are in Arles or near the Montagne St Victoire in Aix your phone will be telling you non stop that you are near the site of a painting (the Painting alert function can be dis-activated ). You can search by artist, by painting or by place and when you have chosen your masterpiece, you have a short but very informative audio text telling you about the history behind  the painting.

click to enlarge and
scan with your phone

It's a simple app and is a great way to discover the artistic side of Provence as you travel, a recommended download  before you leave. 

Edible Heritage

This application is like having your own personal guide of the city of Aix en Provence. Open up the application and you will start with an introduction to the town of Aix en Provence. The Edible Heritage tour takes you through the city with very detailed audio descriptions including historical, architectural and also indicating surrounding restaurants, shops as well as what you can buy in them, from traditional Boutis to Callisons. You don't have to follow the tour, if you prefer you can wander the streets and click on any place of interest and listen to the audio guide. If it is around lunch time you can click on the knife and fork and see which restaurants can be found nearby, with a description of each when clicked on. The application was created by two Canadians who wanted to share their love of Aix en Provence and also their in depth knowledge in the history and traditions to be found there. Although the database is quite extensive, the application does not contain every restaurant in Aix since the creators have only included ones that are tried tested and approved by them, but I would imagine that updates will be forthcoming, and maybe via the contact page on their site http://edibleheritage.com/ you can give your own comments on any discoveries you make on your voyage. I recommend downloading it a while before you leave and you can start your voyage of discovery and begin to whet your appetite back home. 

For 2.30€  you will not find a guide as informative and always at the ready anywhere else, you can of course opt for a real flesh and blood guide, but move the decimal along a couple of notches...and some, and that's for one day only!

Provençal Roaming. A Travel Guide

Created by Francophile Paul Shawcross here is an app that will guide you through Provence and beyond as far as Aigues Mortes and as far North as the Ardeche neither of which is strictly speaking in Provence. But I can see why they are there, I wouldn't be able to contain myself to strict geographical limits if I was creating such an app and I would imagine that if you are visiting the region you wouldn't either! However the Eastern limits are Aix en Provence and Cassis, and he recommends other apps (Riviera Roaming App by Kimberly Lovato) and a forthcoming app called Nice and Easy Nice to cover the missing department of Les Alpes Maritimes. I would have liked to have seen the Provence Verte included, (around Brignoles) as here there are a myriad of secrets to reveal and it is often left out. I hope that this will figure in later editions.

The informative text for each entry is written with authority and I would even say affection as he is not just mindlessly listing places but is sharing his vision as well as that of other people mentioned in the app and I suspect using their personal recommendations for some of the addresses, but this is hardly surprising as Paul Shawcross is a travel writer who is no stranger to Provence and that is why this is a must have guide.

It may not have every place listed, but it has the most important sites as well as some lesser known ones like the Tom Simpson Memorial on the top of the Mont Ventoux. It has a list of restaurants recommended by the author, some hotels, camp sites and even an address for camper-van hire. There is plenty of historical background about Provence and even a section on the Troubadours.  Another aspect of this app that I like is the fact that you can leave comments and Paul will get back to you with a pertinent answer, an unlikely event with major tourist guides.

It is an app that I will recommend to my self-drive clients (along with a few others mentioned in this post) for its good accurate information from someone who is talking from personal experience. Like Edible Heritage it is worth downloading this before you leave so as to whet your appetite for your journey to come! The App is available for I-Phone & I-Pad as well as Android platforms for a mere $2.99.

Moto Paca

This is an application for the bikers, that is motor bikers. Only available on iPhone at the moment and in French but definately worth the detour. This is another application created for the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regional Tourist Board this time by Azur Consulting. It comprises pre-established itineraries for biking around the region, giving you information on restaurants, petrol stations, museums and other useful points of interest on the way. You have information on the distance, and difficulty as well as the time required to complete the itinerary. You can also create your own itinerary and upload it.

This is a free application which I'm sure could also be used by motorists, but be careful of the bikers please!

Visite 04

A free application only available in French for the time being. The QR code on the picture (click for a bigger version) will take you to the app on iPhone and to a mobile site for Android.

Showcasing a favourite destination of mine the department of Les Alpes de Haute Provence, which stretches from the Montagne de Lure, via Forcalquier (where I am sitting writing this article) over the Durance valley to the Valensole plateau and its endlesss lavender, the Verdon river and the Gorges of the same name an all of that neatly packaged by the Alps to the north and east. Sounds good doesn't it! If you want to know more contact us here. http://www.unique-provence.com/contact-us  An article on this amazing destination is coming soon.

Travel applications that help you discover towns, and regions are becoming more and more popular, and help to enrich your travel experience enourmously at very little cost. In Provence the other apps of note are:

Provence and French Riviera by MobileReference Travel, which comes in  free and paying versions  and is a much lighter way of keeping a guide book of the entire region at your fingertips. Find top attractions,  restaurants etc along with phrasebooks and gps maps showing your location.

Coteaux Varois en Provence is an app that allows you to discover the wines of the aforementioned region, and believe me there are some real gems to be discovered!  You will find the vignerons, along with their contact details, events taking place and much on information on the Appelation itself.  See our gourmet wine and food tour here http://www.unique-provence.com/the-art-of-living-en-provence 

If you know of any good apps to enhance your visit to Provence, leave a comment or contact us http://www.unique-provence.com/contact-us and don't hesitate to give your opinions of the above applications.