This post is written by Mary Dupont. Thanks, Mary, for the recommendations!
And thanks Bob for the YouTube biking recommendations!
New section with Paris movies and videos for those visiting Paris before or after the bike tour.
Please don’t consider these as recommendations — but starting points and quirky possibilities for seeing Provence through many types of eyes, genres, and levels of imagination. I would have liked to find more novels that use Provence almost as a geographic “narrator” or raison d’être, but something tells me those are only available in the French (or Occitan) language.
A Northern Light in Provence (Birkelund) is on my library queue. It’s brand new, and an author I haven’t read before, so I’m looking forward to it. Laurie R. King is a great mystery writer, and Riviera Gold has plenty of atmosphere. But it is also #16 in a series, and some of the material might rely on past stories. I’ll be looking for a bargain paperback of the Agatha Christie to bring on the trip, as well as a couple of the Longworths if a trial read goes down easily.
If anyone finds a place to stream “The Horseman on the Roof,” let us know. I’ll be using Amazon for a lot of the movie & TV options. I’ve watched “The Hundred-Foot Journey” twice. Big fan.
Please put new ideas and items in the comments!
| Includes an element of Provence | Author | Other | Available | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TV | ||||
| Monsieur Spade | Based on detective Sam Spade | Netflix | ||
| Downton Abbey: A New Era | Amazon $ or HCLIB DVD | |||
| Murder in Provence | PBS Miniseries | PBS, Amazon free | ||
| Bios & documentaries | Van Gogh or Cezanne | Amazon | ||
| Movies | ||||
| To Catch a Thief | Amazon $, HCLIB DVD or Kanopy free | |||
| Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources | Amazon $ or HCLIB DVD | |||
| The Horseman on the Roof | (Le Hussard sur le toit) | Amazon DVD $30 | ||
| Marius and Jeannette | Amazon Prime | |||
| The Count of Monte Cristo(1962) | Amazon free | |||
| The Count of Monte Cristo(2002) | Hulu or Amazon $ | |||
| The Hundred-Foot-Journey | Filmed west of Toulouse | Amazon $ or HCLIB DVD | ||
| The Rose Maker | In a valley near Paris | Amazon free or Kanopy free | ||
| The French Connection | Marseille, France and Brooklyn, New York | Amazon $ or HCLIB DVD | ||
| YouTube Biking Videos | ||||
| Trek Provence Bike Tour | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HPGlpCSQv0 | |||
| Biking in Provence | https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=provence+france+biking | |||
| Documentaries | ||||
| Visions of France | 2-part PBS Living | Amazon $ or Tubi | ||
| Peter Mayle | YouTube | |||
| Rick Steves | PBS Passport | |||
| Provence: Splendors of the South of France | ||||
| The Great Tours: France through the Ages | 24 lectures | Various streaming services $ | ||
Books | If you have a library card in a county other than Hennepin, you can request items thru MNLink | Hennepin Country Library = HCLIB | ||
| Nonfiction | Provence A - Z | Peter Mayle | HCLIB | |
| Picnic in Provence | Elizabeth Bard | Memoir & recipies | HCLIB | |
| Chanel’s Riviera | Anne de Courcy | HCLIB | ||
| Cezanne and Provence | Nina Athanassoglou-KallmyerBook preview | HCLIB | ||
| The Jews of Provence and Languedoc (2024) | Ram Ben-Shalom | e-Book borrowing possible through worldcat.org | Amazon $190 | |
| Four Queens | Nancy Bazelon Goldstone | The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe | HCLIB | |
| Provence: A Cultural History | Martin Garrett | Expensive on Amazon but many used copies at biblio.com | Amazon $, MNLink (U ofM libraries) | |
| An Historical Geography of France | Xavier de Planhol | MNLink (U of M libraries) | ||
| Markets of Provence | Dixon & Ruthanne Long | Amazon $ & Thriftbooks | ||
| Fiction | The Mystery of the Blue Train | Agatha Christie | Both book and TV (Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Season 10,episode 1 | Amazon $, BritBox, HCLIB |
| A Good Year | Peter Mayle | Both book and movie | HCLIB, Audible, Amazon $ | |
| Riviera Gold (a Mary Russell mystery) | Laurie King | Sherlock Holmes series | HCLIB | |
| A Northern Light in Provence | Elizabeth Birkelund | New 2024 (not reviewed) | HCLIB | |
| Murder in the Rue Dumas | ML Longworth | HCLIB e-book only | ||
| The Count of Monte Cristo | Andre Dumas | HCLIB | ||
| The Day of the Jackal | Frederick Forsyth | Brief scene in southern France (Book, series and movie) | HCLIB, Amazon $, Peacock (new series) | |
| Recommendations | ||||
| Goodreads | Goodreads' recommendations | |||
| Rick Steves | Rick Steves' recommendations | |||
| The Female Scriblerian | The Female Scriblerian's recommendations | |||
| Paris | ||||
| Midnight in Paris | Leaves Amazon Prime 1/1/2025 | Amazon Prime Apple TV+ | ||
| Paris, je t'aime | Eighteen short films set in different arrondissements. | Amazon Prime | ||
| Paris | Amazon Prime $ | |||
| Highlights of Paris | Rick Steves | YouTube | ||
| Paris Travel Tips | YouTube | |||