Plain Plane Trees in the Winter

The large plane trees (platanes) with their huge leaves giving umbrellas of shade in the village squares are a symbol of Provence in the summertime. In the wintertime these same big plane trees evoke another image: thin bare arms with slender fingers pointing to the sky.

The plane trees are (or should be) pruned drastically every year, trimming off the small and medium branches back to the base of the main ones. Rather than looking just bare, the trimmed trees tend to make fantastic patterns, sometimes directly against the sky, and sometimes in shadows on the walls.

These two photos were taken in Lorgues, a village in the Var department. (We have a new set of photos coming for Beyond's Lorgues page in the next few days.