June’s open roads offer optimum timing to ramble across the French hexagon – before the school year is over and everyone is en vacance.  In July it will be the juilletistes, followed by aoûtiens in August flocking to French beaches and mountainsides. The vagabond, after traveling to summer fêtes and foires to write La France Gourmande, is fed up with clogged roads and bouchon (bottlenecks) around cities, preferring June to find “the road less traveled”.  And if you find the backways and byways of the south appealing, head to the northeast corner of Provence to both taste and observe age-old traditions.

The Transhumance, when sheep are driven to higher ground for summer grazing, is good reason for two fêtes in the Verdon region. One will take place on Sunday, June 14th in Castellane, and another Fête de la Transhumance follows June 21st in Riez. But be ready for another kind of slow traffic:  the sheep fill the main street – a sort of four-footed bouchon.

Haute Provence celebrates local bread traditions on June 21st in Pourcelles, when bread ovens are filled with fougasse and pompe à l’huile for their Fête du Pain. On higher ground in the Mercantour, Jausiers brings folks together with their Fête du Pain on June 27-28th.  All of these fêtes are a little off the beaten track, in the refreshing air of Provence’s stunning back country.

Reference sites: www.alpes-haute-provence.com/sorties  and www.jausiers.com .  Watch this space for a provençal fougasse recipe….soon.