Viviers
- By katharine_webster@msn.com
- May 13, 2015
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Notes pour out of the organ at the cathedral in Viviers like rain on parched earth, birds twittering in a tree overhead, trumpets sounding the arrival of a monarch, and a giant shaking the ground with his footsteps. I could easily write about the beauty of the cathedral itself — especially the wooden “mercy seats” around the altar for all the canons, each one with a different stylized face carved into it, or the Gobelin tapestries on the walls — but my favorite thing about the Viviers cathedral was the sound of the organ during our brief private concert. The acoustics were amazing, as were the nimble fingers of the organist, Valery Imbernon, who played a couple of classical pieces, wrapped up with the theme from “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and then played the French national anthem, the Marseillaise, as an encore.
Viviers is another circular, fortified hill town, with lots of “romantic” cobblestone streets and narrow passages. Unlike Perouges, which is almost too perfect a medieval village, Viviers looks both lovely and lived in. Among other things, we saw a house where the architect was given free rein to decorate the facade with a hodge-podge of Roman, Greek, and medieval elements, including both Ionic and Corinthian columns, medieval chivalric symbols, and Romanesque statues. The house belonged to a man who got wealthy by serving as accountant to the aging bishop and taking a larger cut than he was due from the tithes, and then later switching sides and fighting for the Protestants. He was eventually tried, condemned, and put to death in a single day. Our guide said his death took longer than his trial or sentencing.
We also saw the narrow street where goats were butchered during the day, and then pigs were let out of the houses at night to “clean up” by eating whatever was left of the goats. That street opened at the bottom of the hill — presumably no one wanted blood and offal running downhill past their houses. The higher we climbed, the nicer the houses got, until finally we reached the top and were admitted to the courtyard of a house abutting the cathedral that had once belonged to a canon. (As our guide explained, the first son inherited his father’s house and land, the second son went into the army, and the third son, if there was one, went into the church, so there were many canons.) For the first time in our guide’s experience, the owner of this house celebrated his 84th birthday by admitting us to his private garden, an oasis of perfectly tended climbing roses, numerous other flowers in pots and little garden beds, and grass.
We finished by visiting a small meadow on the ramparts that gave a view of the village below, the beginnings of the Alps to the east, and the Rhone Valley all the way to the Cruas nuclear power plant. (Apparently, there is a crocodile farm or zoo just downstream that uses the heated water discharged by the plant to keep its tropical creatures warm.) A quick walk downhill and we landed in a small plaza on market day, where Mom and I bought matching shirts, admired cheeses and sausages and fruit — strawberries are just in season here, and look fantastic — and took tea and cafe au lait at a cafe before heading back to the boat. It’s the first time any of our “free time” has actually materialized and left us time to enjoy a cafe in French style.
