Hiking in Provence: Connecting Literature, Art & Place

Words and photos by Grace Rizzuto, who is studying abroad with ASA in Sorrento during fall semester 2024 and traveled to Aix-en-Provence (another ASA location) on a side trip.

My name is Grace, and I am studying abroad through ASA at Sant’Anna Institute in Sorrento for the Fall 2024 semester. I study English Literature in Massachusetts, and I often connect with places and historical periods in the world via art and literature.

It feels surreal to visit a new place, and yet find yourself somewhere familiar.

As a reader, it has been my privilege to put a place to a name when it comes to the cities that have served as muses for those who have come before.

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Part of my preparation for studying abroad in Italy had been to digest more Italian and Ancient Roman literature. I started reading David Pellauer’s English translation of French scholar Paul Veyne’s book La Elegia Erotica Romana, and was moved to tears while reading the dedication. It was Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem to Paul and Suzanne Jenkins. I was intrigued by its loving depiction of France while I read it at home in Plymouth, not expecting that I would experience the sauterelles (grasshoppers) and low sun in Provence a few months later.

While hiking the Sainte-Victoire mountain range just outside of Aix, I heard French grasshoppers, and watched them flutter along the path, blending in with the dusty stones around them. By an orchard that I reached on the hike, I beheld the view that inspired Paul Cézanne’s oil landscapes, after having pondered over his "Still Life with Apples" and "A Pot of Primroses" in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in March.

As if to further my connection with the piece of literary criticism, I realized that the cover art on my edition was of a painting from Pompeii, currently held in the Naples National Archeological Museum, that I saw on my journey there on the first weekend of the school year.

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To me, literary and visual arts have represented accessibility, as if flying without a plane ticket. The similarities between people of different backgrounds are epitomized by the eyes and ears that converge onto one art piece, and the awe that goes on to span the lengths of countries and decades. Visiting the famous sites of artworks, architecture, and literature that I have enjoyed from a distance, has been a thrilling travel experience. While reflecting on the surrealism of my circumstance, I wrote a poem about my hike in Provence:

Hike from Le Tholonet

I followed Cézanne from the Met. I hear that the mountain view that he had fell off.

Sainte Victoire is on the rise. I approach it like a wall lizard taking on new heights.

Crossing boundaries and retying my shoes on dried clay and sand.

Between the Aix stone buildings was a stirring cold. Here,

as I get closer to the limestone saint, the sun burns my cheeks.

The grasshoppers that I play with up the mountain splay

red wings, under sand cover.

I spill water on the red ground to see it work.

The hills behind me turn blue, making distance into something artistic.

Thanks Grace!