Valbonne: Our new Bethesda

We've dubbed the village of Valbonne our new Bethesda: less than ten minutes from our house; good shops for clothes, ice cream, books; plenty of street vendors, artists and performers; and places to dine en plein air.
There's a scene in the movie French Kiss, filmed in Valbonne, where Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan make their way down a narrow cobblestone street and she exclaims "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!" That pretty much sums up the town.

Valbonne owes its unique charm to two different orders of monks -- the Chalaisians and the Lerins. The monks from Chalais built an Abby in the Valis Bona in 1199 to have a southern base for their flocks of sheep during the winter months. They expanded rigorously throughout the Dauphine region and Provence, choosing communities where they were "assured supplies of cereal, olive oil and wine" while they tended to the sheep.

But their "religious fervor, saintliness and courage" weren't enough to maintain their far flung empire, and the order disbanded by the beginning of the 14th century. (Perhaps they assured themselves of too much wine?)

By the end of the Middle Ages, war, drought and plague devastated the area. In 1519, the head of the Lerins Abby (on an island just off the coast near Cannes) ordered the monks there to build a village next to the old Abby to repopulate the area. They designed the town in a grid pattern around a square that's now the Place des Arcades, the vibrant heart of the town.

Valbonne is famous for its Friday Market where the streets fill up with carts overflowing with fruits, vegetables, flowers, shoes, carpets, and a variety of saucisson flavors that can make a grown man cry.

Valbonne celebrates the Fete de la St. Blaise, de rasin et des produits du terrior with music, parades, markets and wine from the rare Servan grape in late January of each year. We'll be sure to lift a glass to the Chalaisian monks. And to all of our friends in and around the real Bethesda.