Fête votive in Venasque

Friday night was the yearly Fête Votive in Venasque.

We all went up for the marché estival and visited with friends in the village, then we went to the dinner and dancing event set up by the ancient Sarrasine towers.

These towers were built by the Romans to protect the village from the sarrasine invasions coming from the hills south of Venasque. The rest of the village sits out on a cliff that was easier to protect so no massive towers were necessary there.

This particular corner is the one I call "hopeful, hopeful"....our little Clio car is a shift, not automatic and each time I come up around this curve I say the magic words and guess what...it works!!! But it did not for the sarrasines! The village sits right on top of this cliff.

In earlier days, the towers served as a quarry from which to get stone to build the school and perhaps some village houses. In the late 1800's the towers were given National Historic classification so they are now protected and really one of my favorite parts of this wonderful village!

Emmanuelle and I wore our newly created dresses and Maya dressed in a very fairytale style dress...she called it her "wedding" costume.

A very carnival like air reigned up at the towers where the tables were set up and there were some rides for children and carnival stands. Maya won a bow and arrow set at the duck pond.

The band had driven over from some other town a ways away and set up quickly. They said they had been in a three hour traffic jam of vacationers returning home. This is another one of those long weekends since Monday August 15 is a holiday in France.

Tables were set in red tablecloths with rosé and red wine and a kir was served as aperitif.

Our table was shared by a group of Americans and Brits who live in Venasque for part of the year.

Maya was able to practice her English with her tablemate Ben who was on a visit from near London.

Dinner was a hearty Camargais stew of beef, olives and wild rice.

Then the band had everyone twirling their yellow napkins for the typical village party song! I remember this from the first party I attended here years ago. I guess it must be part of the opening of the evening! It made us all laugh which is probably part of the plan! Who would not be laughing at all the people twirling napkins and singing?!

We got to dance,

help a magician perform

and enjoy some music as the stars came out with the moon.

It seemed quite perfect to sit outside until late after three days of really strong Mistral wind.
As the party ended we said our goodbyes

and then sort of danced up to our cars for the quick drive back down to Carpentras.
I hope you have a chance to attend a Fête Votive in a Provençal village some day! Bon weekend!