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Legends and Lore of the Mistral |
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How can a wind get a name for itself, let alone a bad reputation? Travel writer James McConnachie heads to Provence in search of the Mistral. |
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Peter Mayle described the Mistral as a "brutal, exhausting wind that can blow the ears off a donkey" and, as the author of 'A Year in Provence', he had a fair chance to get to know it. ...the Mistral blows as often as 100 days of the year...
More casual visitors to southeast France – future authors of 'A Long Weekend in St Tropez', perhaps – all too often make the acquaintance of this notorious wind as well, as the Mistral blows as often as 100 days of the year, gusting to force 10 and above.
Most tourists miss the winter worst of it, when the wind pours down the Rhône valley in a relentless icy flow that can last a fortnight, but it's also common in spring, and can affect even a Summer break. A complex set of conditions gives rise to a Mistral, but it's essentially a kind of föhn wind. When a high-pressure system grips the plateau of the Massif Central, and a low-pressure area squats over the Mediterranean, the cold mountain air can begin to flow downhill, accelerating dramatically as it roars through the gap of the Rhône valley, before it turns and breaks eastward up the coast. Locals claim that a sudden feeling of dejection sweeps through them just before the Mistral arrives... Locals claim that a sudden feeling of dejection sweeps through them just before the Mistral arrives; once the wind gets up, depression gives way to headaches and irritability.
By the end of the first day of a Mistral, sea temperatures will have dropped from warm lobster bisque to chilly Vichyssoise. Tourists retire hurt to their hotel rooms with a hot lemon and a handful of aspirin. In Provence it's widely believed that the Mistral only blows for an odd number of days.
In Provence it's widely believed that the Mistral only blows for an odd number of days. Meteorologists have a tendency to check their statistical records, remove their glasses in a patronisingly scientific manner and talk about "superstitious nonsense", but the myth works as a coping mechanism, a wishful pretence that there's some kind of rhythm or rationale behind the random, bewildering, brain-scattering gusts.
The name "mistral" comes from the Provençal word for "master", and that's what it does – masters you, knocking you off your feet and out of your mind. More colloquial is the Provençal name of 'le vent du fada', or "the idiot wind", so-called because the Mistral is believed to be more than capable of driving even the sanest weather scientist to gibbering insanity. One blessing is the piercingly clear sky that accompanies the wind. (Technically, it's not true to say that the gusts actually blow away the haze and the clouds, though it seems like it.) In the Vaucluse, in northern Provence, they say that you can see Corsica from the summit of Mont Ventoux during a Mistral, though you'd have to be mad already to climb the mountain when it's blowing. At sea, on the other hand, sailors fear the deadly combination of the wind and the poor visibility caused by spray whipping off the wave crests. Wind-surfers, however, head straight for the beach to show off their acrobatic skills – which must be the most modern symptom of Mistral madness. | |||||
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