FKDL Exhibition for the Inauguration of the Cultural Center of Allauch
30 September 2024
Nicolas Dromard and the association Patrimoine Culturel Provençal will be in charge of restoring the restanques, accompanied by all the volunteers who would like to join them!
As a reminder, the Bastide Neuve olive grove was the scene of Marcel and little Paul’s games. Adjacent to the Pagnol family’s “vacation asylum”, immortalized in the Gloire de mon Père (see excerpt below), the olive grove extends over a 7,000 m2 terraced plot of land at the foot of the Garlaban hills, in the Bellons district of Allauch (official). Wild for more than 60 years, the terraces have collapsed and the trees have suffered several fires. Today, the Marcel Pagnol Endowment Fund owns the olive grove and has set itself the mission of restoring the face it gave to little Marcel so that it can, in the same way, amaze future generations.
” Then my father showed us – with his left hand, for he was still rubbing his aching skull – a small house, on the opposite hillside, half hidden by a large fig tree. Here it is,” he said. Here is the Bastide Neuve. Here is the vacation asylum: the garden on the left is also ours! This garden, surrounded by a rusty fence, was at least a hundred meters wide. I could not distinguish anything but a small forest of olive and almond trees, which married their wild branches above tangled brush: but this virgin forest in miniature, I had seen it in all my dreams, and, followed by Paul, I rushed forward shouting with happiness.”
— Marcel Pagnol, La Gloire de mon père (1957)
