Provence cooking & walking vacation
How this vacation makes a difference
Environment
We are keen supporter of local farmers and artisans. All the produce is sourced locally and the fruits and vegetables are mostly organic. We only serve local St Jeannet wine in order to encourage the local industry and also arrange visits to the local cellar.
Having grown up in the region Benoit is understandably enthusiastic about the village and its surroundings. He is an excellent guide and willingly shares information relating to the history, culture and geography of the region. A stay here is a wonderful way to explore French culture.
The best action we can take to respect our environment is to let people know how to behave while walking in the countryside or in the mountains, such as keeping our litter with us, not taking flowers, respecting wildlife habitats etc. As a certificated walking guide and a professional mountaineer, this is Benoit’s duty. He also offers his guests walks in the National Park of the Mercantour just an hour and a half away from home, which is a protected area in term of plants and animal species. There are nearly 60 “endemic” plants species, and the guards of the park have already reintroduced animal species such as the “gipaete barbu”, a huge raptor bird that had been hunted until it disappeared, and vultures that travel now between this park and the regional park of the Verdon. Also, wolves have come back in the park via Italy through the Alps and are now protected as well. Guardians of refuges in the National Park sometimes have the opportunity to observe them.
Community
We buy as many fresh products as we can, like fresh vegetables grown by local peasants. Corinne shops at the local butcher, buy the bread at the local boulangerie everyday, and find local honey and cheese at the peasant market in the next village. We also recently met a young man who just started to make his olive oil after spending a year to renovate (helped by his family), an olive tree fields, that had been abandoned as the work was considered too hard. We offer our guests to visit the unique vineyard that remains in the area, which is also located near the village of St Jeannet. The same family has been growing this wine for more than 3 generations, despite the fact that all the other vineyards had been abandoned when the perfume industry in Grasse had offered the peasants to buy flowers instead. Also, visiting some villages around that are being abandoned slowly by slowly by young people who don’t want to work in agriculture anymore make us believe that it will help to maintain a little activity and encourage the few ones who have decided to still live out there. At last, being in a small village ourselves, we are often in contact with our neighbours who are very keen to come and sit on the terrace sometimes and talk about the old times of the village, which is we believe a nice way to learn about the culture of a country. And this is maybe the best part of a trip overseas.
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