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 We can be
happy in Provence without having seen Carpentras. We will miss of course the
baroque synagogue and the mysterious baptisterium if we leave out the
neighboring Venasque. It is a fact that around this city, admirable sites abound
(Ventoux, Gorges de la Nesque, Dentelles de Montmirail, Luberon).
But if we don’t want to ignore CARPENTRAS we take the D 7 from Beaumes de
Venise to
notice that Carpentras is not packed with touristy miracles. It is also wise to
visit Carpentras on a sunny day to escape the crushing melancholy of this
provincial town.
Still
huddled behind his walls the center of town is principally the cathedral
Saint-Siffrein, a saint not figuring in the “Who is who “ of the saints,
while the ravaged front façade of this mighty edifice more looks like a
patchwork of styles. Useful addresses are bike-renting ones: Terzo Sports, 519
av. Frederic Mistral tel 0490673156 and also Euro-Moto, av. du Comtat Venaissin
tel 0490632459.
The role
Carpentras played in history is not especially exalting. It is Carpentras that
the French popes at that time came to fight their quarrels. Exactly like
Avignon, Carpentras disappeared in its old lethargy when the popes returned to
Rome. But until the French revolution it stayed under the rule of papal Rome
while all the territory around belonged to the French king. Rome soured like
that for 300 years the life of the Comtat Venaissin. A lot of power struggles
happened during that time. The scenery where all these struggles, the Bishopric
palace, took place doesn’t exist anymore and is replaced by the fantasy less
Palais de Justice. It gained beautiful monuments of the 17th and 18th century.
It is a good idea to park your car under the plane trees of the boulevard
Marechal Leclerc near the porte d’Orange and to enter the old city on foot.
With a peaceful peace we will arrive at the place du General de Gaulle, the vast
square in front of the cathedral Saint-Siffrein with a few sympathetic terraces.
We can loiter around the church on the right and stop for a moment at the
“Porte des Juifs” (Jews gate). It’s through that gate that the forced
converted Jews entered the cathedral for the first time. Just above the gate we
see a strange sculpture called “boulo di gari” (rat ball). Nobody knows
exactly what it means. Like Provence specialist Jean-Paul Clebert notices:
“It’s possible that the most important function of the rat ball was to
divert the wrath of god like the plague”
Because we, like any tourist with some sense, always have a small but powerful
field glasses in our bag, we can see at a more detailed view that the ball looks
more like a first world war sea mine and looking even more carefully as a
tortoise with rats on his back. Magnificent sculpted wood ensemble of the 17th
at the end of the apse.
In the gray corner formed by the church and the palais de Justice( with high
windows in the façade) there is a Roman arch, hidden like a punished child.
But Carpentras stays famous because having been the preferred city of the Jews
chased and expelled from the kingdom of France. They sought
refuge on the popes property where the counts of Toulouse offered them safety
and freedom of religion. The city kept a Jewish quarter with a synagogue, build
in the 14th century, the oldest in France with the ritual "mikvah",
baths and pools to get pure and of which the water is supplied by source water, as
tradition prescribes
it. One floor of the building acts now as museum, but you hace to ask
permission from the curator to gain entry.
When plague epidemics started and Jews were held responsible, pope Clemens VII
protected them from popular wrath. In the 18th century there were
2,000 Jews on a population of 10.000. The synagogue, too small was rebuilt but
the life circumstances in the ghetto were horrible. Imagine more than 1000 Thousand persons packed
in a 250 yards long alley.
Today only a few Jewish families still live in Carpentras. They were extremely
shocked, together with the total French population by the destruction of Jewish
graves in the cemetery by a group of skinheads.
L'hotel-Dieu is a building of the 13th century. You can visit the pharmacy kept
as it was in the 18th.. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays from 9.00 AM to 11.30 AM.
Very important: if you are in Carpentras on a Friday morning, don't miss the
MARKET! Fruit, cheese, sweeties producers from all over the region come, display
and sell their products. even only for the pleasure of the senses. Especially
the town's own sort of caramel candy, called "berlingots". And maybe you'll meet the three last descendants of Al Capone: they are
adorable. But most of all Carpentras is known for its famous truffles. Their
peak period is from end November to begin March on Friday morning place Aristide-Briand.
Bibliography
"La
Provence devient francaise", by Roger Duchène (Fayard, Paris 1986)
"Guide de la Provence mysterieuse" and "Provence Antique"by
Jean-Paul Clebert (Ed.Sand, 1986),"The Roman remains of Southern
France", by James Bromwich (Routledge London 1993), “Aspects of
Provence, by Pope-Henessy James (Penguin Travel 1988), “Le Vaucluse, pas une
sinecure””by Roger de la Borge (ed. Climats, Avignon, 1999)-Guides du Routard, (1999)« Les
Juifs a Carpentras », by Fr.Huguette (ed.Albin Michel 1996)
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