The 2025 Morgan Europe Trip

April 11, 2025 Socca and Tourrettes-sur-Loup

We had two quaint surprises today! First, we walked through a town square outside the Medieval walls of Vence that regularly has market stalls and came upon a stall selling socca. Collin said that Rick Steves (of PBS travel shows) recommends trying this local food. The vendor ladled up some pancake looking batter onto a circular, large, heavy pan and put it in his oven. Wikipedia describes socca like this: "Socca is a thin, unleavened pancake or crepe made from chickpea flour, water, olive oil, and salt. It is a traditional street food originating from the Provence region of southeastern France and the Ligurian coast of northwestern Italy."

It was tasty! Especially the toasty, crispy edge bits.

The vendor, the oven is on the right hand side of the picture.

Yummy socca!

The second surprise was a randomly selected town 10 minutes away called Tourrettes-sur-Loup. It had all the delights of a hilltop, Medieval town without the crush of tourists, at least this time of year.

Tourrettes-sur-Loup (photo credit: Google)

"Tourrettes-sur-Loup on its rocky promontory, so favourable for its defence, has experienced 30 centuries of turbulent history. A tribe of Celtic Ligurians settled here the beginning of the 9th century B.C.. Later in 262 B.C. the Romans came to occupy «turres altea» (the observation point) which name would later give birth to «Tourrettes» and stayed until 476 A.D. when a period of 500 years of invasions began. The village was invaded by all possible barbarian tribes: Visigoths, Huns, Franks and Lombards until the Saracens fortified the place and occupied it until 972." From a pamphlet from the Office de Tourisme

Our view walking into town from a parking area. These old towns have no parking.

Cute narrow streets.

Old arches.

Everywhere was well kept and quaint.

How many feet have trod these stairs?

Rod next to tiny doors. Not sure if they are still actively used, but they must have been at one point.

Love the entrance to this little place.

Approaching a look out spot.

The view.

Looking back up at town from the look out spot.

Look what I have to put up with, vacationing with goofballs! (I love it!!)

Tourrettes is also called the "Village of Violets" and has a festival the first weekend in March every year.

Now comes the best part of the day! We stumbled into one of the many shops of artisans and found an artist actively working. We asked if we could watch and she said yes. She asked what we knew about illuminations. Precious little! We knew they were from old books in the middle ages, they involved gold leaf, and we thought no one did them anymore. Surprise! Anastasia, the artist, explained there are currently 5 illumination masters in France. She studied under one of them. There are about 60 artisans in France at her level that keep the medieval techniques alive. Not all illuminators use the ancient medieval techniques. She works on parchment. Here is more description of what she does.

Anastasia was chosen to make the art for this poster. Here's what the caption said, "A poster created using traditional illumination techniques, on parchment and using medieval pigments. It takes approximately 300 hours of work. Illumination has a thousand years of history."

Here is her Facebook page to see more of her work. https://www.facebook.com/enluminuresanastasia/photos_by

We left her shop and headed back to the parking lot for our 10 minute ride home.