Katrice’s Reviews > Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France > Status Update

If you travel away from home for pleasure, you're a tourist, no matter how you like to dress it up. I consider myself a permanent tourist. Some of my best friends are tourists. Tourism makes an important contribution to the local economy and provides a living for many talented people - I think one of the things I really love about Mayle is his complete lack of smug pretentiousness.

There's no doubt about it. Food tastes better on Sunday. - If there is anything I might have rolled my eyes at then but actually really appreciate its the fact that Sunday was an event/obligation for me growing up. Lunch with one side of the family, dinner with the other. Sometimes it was tiresome but all in all I think it was good for me and a good idea.

There is no great importance given to time in the sense of punctuality, there is an enormous relish of the moment.

Returning to a place where you have been happy is generally regarded as a mistake. Memory is a notoriously biased and sentimental editor, selecting what it wants to keep and invariably making few cosmetic hanges to past events. With rose-colored hindsight, the good times become magical; the bad times fade and eventually disappear leaving only a seductive blur of sunlit days and the laughter of friends.