Why it’s time to switch on to the off season

From Provence and Tuscany to Andalucia and the Algarve, our favourite summer hotspots are just as alluring after the crowds have gone, say our experts

Why the off-season is special

Our British forebears got it right. Up to the Great War and beyond, the great and good and the rich and royal migrated to Provence, notably the Riviera, for the winter. Thus did they distance themselves from a cold, damp northern climate. Obviously, winter Provence wasn’t as hot as summer, but that was an advantage. Pale skins feared fierce sun. Winter was quite warm enough, with light so limpid that the world seemed polished.

It still does, usually. Step off the plane in Nice or Marseilles and it’s as if someone has turned the sky up to max. And although nights need knitwear, you may very well be lunching on an outdoor terrace; lamb with herbs, say. Or something with olives or truffles. Ah, olives and truffles. This is their time and their place. They make autumn and winter largely worthwhile. The olive harvest is now under way; you can get involved, from picking the fruit through to producing the oil, at the Domaine les Touchines, near Pernes-les-Fontaines (domainelestouchines.com). Otherwise, olive oil mills all over the Vaucluse département will clue you in and sell you as much as you can afford. You will learn that black olives are merely green ones that have lived longer.

Talking of black, Vaucluse is also home to the vast majority of French truffles. Key winter markets include Carpentras, every Friday morning until the end of March and, biggest of all, Richerenches on Saturdays. (But please don’t go buying unless accompanied by an insider – rip-offs are common.) The Truffle Mass on the third Sunday of January in Richerenches should ensure integrity – but wads of cash (truffle deals are all cash) have a way of creating their own indulgences. Should you want to get more closely involved, contact the Jaumard brothers at Monteux, near Carpentras. They will take you out truffle-seeking with dogs Mirette and Polka, provide B&B, aperitif and dinner for £275 per couple (truffes-jaumard.com).

So you roll around a glowing countryside, stopping maybe at any wineries that appeal. They will be very welcoming, nowhere more so than in the Bandol appellation area, where this weekend they celebrate the 2022 vintage. Producers of Provence’s best reds open up their properties to all-comers. I would suggest heading for the Domaine de Terrebrune at nearby Ollioules on the Saturday (terrific place, terrific wines; terrebrune. fr). Follow up with a Sunday visit to the Maison des Vins at the entry to Bandol itself. There you might taste what an American fellow visitor, last time I was there, called “a whole bunch of wines”.

Then, come January, Provence bursts into yet brighter colours as swathes of mimosa turn the landscape

PROVENCE

yellow, from Bormes-les-Mimosas along the coast and up to Grasse (routedumimosa.com). It’s horticulture’s heady champagne moment, best experienced at the Domaine du Rayol gardens at Le Rayol-Canadel or in Bormes itself. In late February, the medieval village hosts a Mimosa Festival and procession, with beflowered floats and much else besides. A standout in recent times has been a vast sphinx crafted from mimosa and other winter flowers.

Winter savings

Accommodation savings can be enormous. Take the Villa Victoria (00 33 4 93 88 39 60; villa-victoria.com) in Nice. Prices for a double room in November and December start at £82; in July and August at £213. Over in Avignon, winter prices at the mid-market L’Horloge hotel (00 33 4 90 16 42 00; hotel-avignon-horloge.com) kick off at £101; high summer prices are from £134.

Similar economies may be had with villas. A week in a posh two-bedroom mas Provençal near the Luberon village of Gordes is listed by Pure France at £693 from January 7 to April 1, and at £1,652 from June through July and August (purefrance.fr).

What to do

An obvious highlight is the carnival at Nice: this year, from February 10-26 2023, enlivening France’s fifth city on the theme of Treasures of the World. Heritage stuff, in other words, in gigantic float form. The associated battles of flowers were much appreciated by Queen Victoria (nicecarnaval.com). Simultaneously, nearby Menton goes ape with 80 tons of citrus fruit in the Fête du Citron: oranges and mainly lemons (citrons) are crafted into floats, gigantic models and many other things not immediately associated with fruit. It’s just as appealing as the carnival (fete-du-citrus.com). I would take in both.

I’d also use crowd-free times to tick off some of Provence’s newer, brighter cultural offerings. Publicity blurb for the Luma centre at Arles is impenetrable contemporary-art speak, so best show up to discover whether it is as rebarbative as it sounds. Whatever your conclusion, the place needs seeing, and not merely for Frank Gehry’s crushed can tower (luma.org).

Meanwhile, down in Marseille, the opening of the reproduction of the Cosquer Cave paintings was this year’s major cultural event in the French south. Mankind had waited 19,000 years to see once again the 500 paintings from a cave whose entrance is now 120ft below the Med’s surface. Brilliantly realised, the reproductions are at the waterfront Villa Méditerranée (grotte-cosquer.com).

Join the locals

Festivals and fêtes created by and for locals abound in wintertime Provence. The greatest of these is Christmas, which the Provençaux relish, segueing seamlessly from the spiritual to the profane and back again. The Provençal crèche, for instance, has the nativity crib scene slotted into a traditional Provençal village – complete with “santon”, figurines representing the butcher, baker, miller, laundry woman, local toper, wood-cutter and many others not necessarily present at Bethlehem.

Towns and villages across the region display very impressive crèches, not least Solliès-Ville, north of Toulon. There, the village crèche circuit takes in 150 different examples. Tour them now until January 8 (visitvar.fr). Carpentras also doesn’t disappoint, crèche-wise. In truth, it does Yuletide with a verve fuelled by street theatre, simulated skiing, a skating rink, market and unusual joie de vivre from December 10-31. A visit to Carpentras might also include an appreciation of France’s oldest synagogue and, by extension, the story of the Jews of Provence, not least because, from December 18-26, it is not only Christmas time but also Hanukkah. Guided tours take in the Jewish history of Carpentras at 10.30am on December 20, 22 and 29 (provenceguide.com).

Come Christmas Eve, proper Provençaux should have a simple enough meal – ending with the traditional 13 desserts symbolising, it is said, Christ and the apostles at the Last Supper. The desserts are a bit arid – nougat, nuts, dried fruit, that sort of thing – so you should be in reasonable shape for a Provençal Midnight Mass, featuring evocations of the nativity with real animals. Best of all may be at Allauch, near Marseille. The little town hosts a street party from 5.30pm. At 10.15pm, villagers in traditional rustic Provençal gear descend the hillside accompanied by sheep and lambs – and by lights, music and a sense of occasion. They file into Midnight Mass in the Saint Sebastien church, where the spiritual may follow them. The profane will probably prefer to stay outside.