The Sainte-Baume, the cave and the sacred forest

This is the summit of the journey, in the literal sense. The Sainte-Baume massif raises its long limestone cliff above a forest unlike any other in Provence: a cool, deep beech wood, a relic of another climate, held sacred since antiquity. Neither the Gauls nor the Romans cut timber there.

At nine hundred metres, opening into the cliff, the cave where Mary Magdalene is said to have spent the last thirty years of her life has been a sanctuary since the fifth century, kept by Dominican friars since 1295. You climb on foot along the forest paths, beneath the great beeches, in around an hour and a half: an ascent made before us by Saint Louis, Francis I, Louis XIV and millions of walkers.

The arrival always takes hold of you: the dark, cool cave carved out facing the void, the silence, and below, the whole of Provence spread out to the sea. Believer or not, nobody comes down from the Sainte-Baume quite as they went up.