This book is something opposite to guidebooks and impressionist essays: descriptions of landscapes are not borrowed by the author from geographical directories, and paintings of the past are from history textbooks. She is the fruit not only of brilliant erudition, but also of imagination; track observations are fused in it with existential experience. Provence for the author is a special magnifying glass, thanks to which it is better to see where we are from and where we are going. Adam Vodnitsky (b. 1930) - artist, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow; translator of French literature; honorary citizen of Arles.