Croix de Provence et prieuré Sainte-Victoire

Vauvenargues

On the limestone ridge overlooking the Aix countryside, a hermitage is recorded as early as 1251, but the present ensemble was born of a vow: around 1654 the abbé Jean Aubert withdrew there, and a burgher of Aix, Honoré Lambert, funded from 1657 to 1670 a chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Victoire, a cloister and cells, approved in 1665 by Archbishop Grimaldi. The priory fell into ruin in the 19th century and was only restored from 1955 onwards by the association of the Amis de Sainte-Victoire. The Croix de Provence, for its part, was built from 1871 to 1875 on the initiative of the abbé Meissonnier as an act of thanksgiving; struck by lightning several times, it was restored in 1982 and 2004. The mountain's name is itself a legend: tradition holds that it commemorates the victory of Marius over the Teutons and the Cimbri in 102 BC near Aquae Sextiae, but the historians Camille Jullian and Michel Clerc have shown it to be a scholarly legend forged in the 18th and 19th centuries, the massif's old name being Mont Venturi. In the farms on the northern slopes people still say that on stormy nights the battle can be heard, and the chasms of the massif, the garagaïs, were held to be bottomless pits. The mountain finally became a universal motif thanks to Paul Cézanne, who devoted 87 works to it. The pilgrimage of the people of Pertuis, attested since the 16th century, continues under the Provençal name of roumavagi, on the last Sundays of April.

Grand Site Concors Sainte-Victoire — prieuré et Croix de Provence ↗

Getting there : On foot only. From Vauvenargues to the north via the GR9 (about 1 hr 30 min of climbing), from Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon to the south via the Imoucha path or the red route (2 hrs). The Croix de Provence stands in the commune of Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, the priory a few dozen metres below on the Vauvenargues side. The massif is subject to prefectoral closure orders for fire risk from June to September: check access the day before.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound