During the time we were based in Aix en Provence in the south of France, hiking to the top of Montagne (Mount) Sainte-Victoire, was a priority. Looming over the French Departments of Bouches-du-Rhône and Var with a peak elevation of 1,011 metres, Montagne Sainte-Victoire is most famous for its many appearances in the paintings of Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), who could see it from near his house in Aix-en-Provence.
Now, I am not a big fan of hiking, but this was something hubby really wanted to do, and let’s face it, its not everyday you get to hike to the top of a mountain so celebrated! The view at the top would be amazing and after sampling endless amounts of french cheeses and pastries, I figured the exercise would do me good, besides … how tough could it be?
VERY TOUGH.
There are several routes to Le Croix de Provence (the cross of Provence), a 17th century priory from where there is a spectacular panoramic view of the Provencial mountains and rolling plains of the Aix area. The route we chose was about 12 kilometres and looking up at the mountain from the carpark where the trail started, I could not even begin to comprehend that we would be at the top of it within a matter of hours – it looked like a week’s worth of hiking – and extremely steep!!
We parked down at the bottom, laced up our shoes and headed off. At first the path seemed to be a relatively small incline and I thought it would be an easy climb. Really, considering how high the mountain peak was and that we only had 6km to get to the top, i should have known better! Before too long, the path seemed like it was a 45 degree incline (there were times we could pretty much walk up on all fours, it was that steep!) and we were asking ourselves why we decided to put ourselves through it…
The path was mostly gravel and it was actually quite peaceful just putting one foot in front of the other, stopping for regular water breaks and to check our progress and look behind.below us as we made our way up the mountain side. Within an hour we were about half way up, and the view was already pretty spectacular, the anticipation for reaching the top was building, and we kept on at it.
After the first hour, the path got even steeper and stayed that way for the next hour or so as we summited the top half of the mountain – soon the Croix was in full view and it was time for a pitstop and a few photos.
Just before the summit of Montagne Sainte Victoire there is a priory which was habited for decades by monks and we stopped and had our lunch sitting on the stairs overlooking the grand view we had earned with our sore legs. The final climb was only a few hundred feet above the priory where the Croix itself was and by this point, the wind was blowing a gale and we were literally holding on to the side of the mountain for dear life, wanting to reach the very top but also feeling like it was a very real possibility we might get blown off!
The view from the top over the countryside was well worth it, and after all our overindulging from the last month or so, it was rewarding to feel like we might have made a dent in all the cheese and wine. We stayed up at the top for about an hour, taking in the serenity and catching our breath before we started our descent. The return trip did not take us as long – SO much easier going down than up, but probably more dangerous on the old netball knees!
The Provencal countryside is stunning, and it was extremely cool to see it from this completely different angle! Highly recommend it to anyone after a different day trip out of Aix. All in all, this was a highlight and I am so glad we made the time and took the effort to do this hike, it has definitely wet our appetite to do some more hikes in future trips, something which has never really caught our fancy in the past.