Mt St Victoire and Marseille I

Aix-en-Provence is situated close to a stunning mountain & ridge line called Mont Sainte Victoire. It is covered in some low vegetation (including beautiful flowers – see images below), but vast amounts of it, including the most vertical of its slopes, are just bare white rock, which makes it quite a sight on the horizon from Aix. Some of Cezanne’s most famous paintings feature Mt St Victoire. Cezanne was born and lived most of his life in Aix and they are obsessed with him. He virtually seems to have invented modern art and you can visit his house, his studio and somewhere that he popped in to have a cup of tea one afternoon.

Anyway, naturally this place is a magnet for avid hikers like us, so last weekend we took a local bus for the 30 minute ride out to Puyloubier, one of the towns at the base on the south side of the Mont. We planned to do an easy to moderate walk because anything above moderate had a recommendation that you carry ropes!

The town of Puyloubier way down below where we started the walk

The day was warm and sunny at the start and we got amazing vistas both south in the direction of Marseille and north towards the Luberon valley and the French Alps. It was even possible to see Mt Ventoux (another beacon of white rock) which is the finishing line for the 2nd stage of this year’s Tour de France (but there will be more about that in July when we see that finish on Mt Ventoux).

Later in the afternoon some dark clouds drifted overhead providing a stunning contrast with the mont.

On the way to the summit it was actually necessary to use chains, permanently attached to the rocks, to climb up some sections. All in all the walk was a little more difficult than we’d anticipated. The walking guide had estimated our route at 5 hours, but with stopping for lunch and taking photos we realised that we’d miss our bus from the town of Vauvenargues on the northern side of the mont. So we had to take the decision to use a shorter but more difficult path down to Vauvenargues. This was absolutely hell on our knees but we made it back to Vauveenargues with plenty of time to have a beer at the local bar and get the bus home.

Along the way we saw many beautiful wild flowers. Here's a sample of a few.

The following day we visited Marseilles with the aim of going across to the Chatueau d’If on the Isle d’ If – which has something to do with the Count of Monte Christo – but it was too windy so we’ll have to go back another day. There is a magnificent church on a hill overlooking Marseilles which also affords great views of Marseilles and the bay so we walked up there instead. After the previous day of hiking this climb pretty much wiped us out so we just wandered around a little before heading back to Aix.

Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde

In Marseilles we had one of the many confusing little moments we are having by trying to talk to each other in French as much as possible. We passed a lovely place with lots of umbrellas out. I attempted to say in French that it looked like an interesting market had been set up. Dale said he thought that it wasn’t a market and they were restaurants. After a couple of questions I thought he said that he had initially thought that they were restaurants but it did look like a market. Fast forward to lunch time and I suggested that we go back to the place with the market and Dale looked at me confused and asked if I meant the place with the restaurants. At this point, frustration levels rising, we switched to English and worked out the misunderstanding. Typically the place was a mixture of both market stalls and restaurants. Anyway, we’ve learnt that while we need to try to speak French with one another as much as possible that it does lead to confusion, which doesn’t matter in an instance like this, but that some things are best communicated in English.

Nous with the Port of Marseille in the background