The secret South of France

Riders prepare to herd bulls through the streets for a ‘fête votive’

My mother once said that hell was a French motorway on August 15 with a car full of children. August 15, the day the Virgin Mary went up to heaven, is also a grand départ and at the same time, a chassé-croisé – one of those days on which the whole nation, either returning from or setting out for annual leave, takes to the road. Cars heaving with inflatable boats, mountain bikes, barbecues and all the paraphernalia of recreation, edge along the main arteries in the blistering heat. The French remain uncharacteristically calm, probably because this is an annual ritual. Some families even unload their aluminium furniture and, waiting patiently for greater fluidity, picnic on the hard shoulder. Needless to say, my English mother never managed to take on the insouciance of the French in the face of this experience, so for us children in the back, only when she left the autoroute just south of Avignon and her private hell ended did our holiday really begin.

This was back in the 1970s but August in France can still be hell and leaving the A9 at the right spot can still lead to heaven. We came off at a place called Remoulins and headed west towards a gem of medieval-renaissance architecture called Uzès (pronounced, despite what all English people who come here seem to believe, not “Oozes” but “Uzess”). My parents kept returning to the Gard for the same reason that I do 35 years on: it is cheap, unspoilt and, although I’m loath to use the word, authentic.

On the unfashionable side of the Rhône, the Gard often catches itself wishing it were in Provence and there are plenty of hazy websites suggesting that it is. Many Gardois wish they could charge the same prices and attract the same chichi clientele as their neighbours in Vaucluse but they can’t. Why not, you might ask? The same mistral blows on both sides of the Rhône and the same sunshine bleaches the same Roman landscapes, with the same rolling hills covered with vineyards, cypress trees, olive groves and lavender. The Gard has the same hilltop villages made of soft, golden limestone and markets selling the same produce that tastes of how things used to taste without requiring an organic label.

The truth is they can’t charge the same because, despite all of this, there is something a little bit grubby about the Gard and that is why I love it so much. It is unrefined and unreconstructed. The villages still have those cool, dark cafés where the clientele takes its morning espresso with a cognac chaser, where you can still play table football (baby foot) on a 1950s table beneath one of those brilliant devices that kills flies by toasting them.

The Place Aux Herbes in Uzès

This at once beautiful and unglamorous corner of the Languedo – the stretch of rocky Garrigue that lies south of Le Mont Bouquet, in the triangle between the town of Uzès, the Roman garrison town of Nîmes and the small, unprepossessing village of Moussac – is not for the faint-hearted. It’s the place you come to if you wish to recapture some of those sensations that you haven’t felt since the 1970s, where you can relive the no-seatbelt-in-the-back or the no-crash-helmet-on-the-moped feeling. This part of France, if you’re willing to really live it, will take you far, far away from the constraints of Health and Safety.

For in this part of the Gard, summer is the season of the fête votive, a village fiesta revolving around bull herds that are reared in the neighbouring salt flats of the Camargue and then unleashed on to the village streets. The vachettes, as they’re misleadingly called, with their impressive horns and sleek black coats, are hired for five days by the Comité des Fêtes, which has been saving up all year in order to offer thrills to the villagers but, in particular a showcase for male bravura, for there is still a strong element of the marriage market to these gatherings.

Every afternoon, after siesta when the streets are beginning to cool, the abrivado takes place: the bulls are let out of their pen and herded through the village, sometimes by men and women on grey Camargue horses, and sometimes just by teenage lads in search of a moment’s glory. The bulls race, along with youths and the more foolhardy of the middle-aged men, to the far end of town, where they are corralled in wait for the evening’s encierro, the running of the bulls, which takes place in the makeshift arena set up for the occasion. The bulls are young and quick and their horns are sharp. The trick is to pluck off a rosette from one of their horns and the youths, showing off to their girlfriends, can volt over the barriers with an agility that is impressive. I once saw my father, showing off and out of his league, being knocked over and trampled by a vachette. The younger men, wearing tracksuits or Lycra shorts, some with flip-flops on their feet, lured the bull away but no one made a fuss of him. Unhurt, he rose to his feet, picked up his cigar, put it back between his teeth and brushed himself off. He did not, as far as I can remember, ever get back in the ring again.

For some reason, France has not yet succumbed to the temptation to make life a safe experience. Living as we now do in a culture that has built an industry around the fear of what might happen, it is perhaps no longer acceptable to seek out the heady adrenaline that these events can produce. I, however, still relish the anticipation as I sit on that stone wall, in that crowded street, flanked by my excited children and wait for the shout to go up as the bulls are released. There is First Aid, of course, but it is discreet and I have never seen anyone seriously injured. Nor have I seen any police at these fêtes, though I’m told that there are always a few gendarmes about.

Later in the evening, after you have watched the men messing about in a ring with a bull (or even joined in yourself), it is time for the women to have their moment. No less important an investment for the Comité des Fêtes is Le Grand Bal, which will feature an often spectacular live band, with backing vocalists, brass sections and dancers to rival those of the age of Motown. The women open the dance floor, jiving expertly together as the men look on, often summoning more courage than they have required for the bull ring. Everyone – from old ladies in crochet dresses, to pot-bellied farmers on a last, desperate look-out for a fiancée, to love-struck teenagers and even little children way past their bedtime – gathers in the village square to dance. Now is the time to shed that most entrenched of British fears, the fear of embarrassment, and give yourself up to the wonderfully cheesy cover of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”. Muscat and pastis flow but since no one in this part of the world seems to suffer from our national disease, there are no instances of fall-down drunkenness.

The next morning you can wake up in a tasteful B&B, in one of the picturesque villages surrounding Uzès, and go back to the more refined activities for which the South of France is known. Uzès market, held every Saturday morning, will cater to every bourgeois cell in your body. And Nîmes, a particularly elegant town, has one of the best-preserved Roman arenas in the world and a complete, fifth-century Roman temple that looks as if it was built yesterday.

There’s your holiday, then: a perfect blend of grit and sophistication; ease and sensation; comfort and adventure. So the next time you’re on the Autoroute du Soleil heading for Provence, don’t. Come off and, if you dare, turn right instead of left and head towards the land that Health and Safety forgot.

‘The Secret Life of France’ by Lucy Wadham is published by Faber (£7.99)

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Details

The best fêtes votives: La Calmette (August 4-8), Moussac (August 11-16), and Saint Chaptes (August 19-24). For more details of these and others, see www.fetesvotives.net

Where to stay: Hotel Jardins Secrets, Nîmes, see below. Chateau Hotel Arpaillargues, Arpaillargues (doubles from €130; www.chateaudarpaillargues.com). Le Clos du Lethe B&B, Montaren (doubles from €200; www.closdulethe.com). Hotel d’Entraigues, Uzès: (doubles from €90; www.hoteldentraigues.com). Au Quinze B&B, Uzè (doubles from €95; www.auquinze.com)

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Secret gardens and opulent oases

Sophie Dening, editor of the newly published Mr & Mrs Smith Hotel Collection: France, picks her five favourite hideaways in the South of France:

Les Jardins Secrets

Les Jardins Secrets

Hidden on a discreet street in the centre of Nîmes, a simple copper sign – the sort you’d never notice if you weren’t looking for it – announces the hotel entrance. You ring, the door opens and you enter a miniature garden of Eden, with banana plants, olive trees, deckchairs and a pool. Inside, the communal areas are stuffed with collectibles and antiques. It’s a storehouse of diversions, offering a thousand and one places for lovers to disappear together. The interiors of the 14 bedrooms are far from conventionally Mediterranean, rather opulent with brocade and leather armchairs and overstuffed sofas. Doubles from €195; 3 rue Gaston Maruejols, Nîmes; www.jardinssecrets.net

Bastide de Moustiers

Bastide de Moustiers

Owned by the celebrated chef Alain Ducasse, the hotel is his former home, a grand stone building that he happened upon while exploring on his motorbike. The magnificent grounds have pergolas, meandering paths and a swimming pool; the rooms are light-filled, airy and elegant. Furnishings were supplied by local artisans, giving the property a distinctly Provençal flavour, with hand-embroidered linens, painted ceramic sinks, handmade crockery and heavy antique furniture. As you would expect in a dining room belonging to the chef with 12 Michelin stars, the food is a highlight. Doubles from €190; Chemin de Quinson, Moustiers-Sainte-Marie; www.bastide-moustiers.com

Crillon le Brave

Crillon le Brave

You will have no problem locating the hotel in the village – Crillon le Brave is the village. The 32 bedrooms are spread among seven houses clustered around the 16th-century church on a Provençal hilltop. Traditionally furnished rooms have views over pale terracotta roof tiles and rocky ramparts to fluffy oak and cherry trees, vineyards and limestone-topped hills. There’s a swimming pool and spa, and renowned cycling country on the doorstep. Doubles from €240; Place de l’Eglise, Crillon le Brave; www.crillonlebrave.com

Domaine de Verchant

A working winery, Domaine de Verchant is a deluxe hotel and spa in the middle of 17 hectares of vine-striped hills – the perfect setting for a weekend of wine-splashed rural escapism. As you walk through the sandy stone buildings, it feels less like a boutique hotel and more like a farm stay, only with incredibly luxurious bedrooms, some of the sharpest decor in the South of France, and one of the region’s most celebrated spas, its glass walls looking out over the grapevines. Doubles from €230; 1 Boulevard Philippe Lamour, Castelnau-le-Lez; www.domainedeverchant.com

Cap d’Antibes Beach Hotel

Built on the site of a beach club that once attracted Cary Grant and Sophia Loren at the height of their fling, this wedge of land between two bijou marinas has been transformed into a stylish mini-resort. There are 27 rooms, a bar, spa, pool and beach. The design is unusually contemporary for the area (the hotel sits between the grande dame Belles Rives and the ostentatiously glitzy Hotel du Cap Eden Roc), with a palette of mushroom, white and sand, neutral smooth stone floor tiling and textured cement ceilings. Doubles from €390; 10 boulevard Maréchal Juin, Cap d’Antibes; www.ca-beachhotel.com

‘Mr & Mrs Smith Hotel Collection: France’ (£19.95; www.mrandmrssmith.com )