No one else in our little gaggle of hikers seems worried as we trudge up the cobbles toward the Café de Sade. My mind spins with menu possibilities in a bistro named for the marquis and tucked in the shade of his ruined chateau.
But lunch is nothing more sinister than the Provencal specialty, le soupe au pistou, a hearty vegetable soup made spicier and more garlicky with each spoonful of pesto we add. The cafe is ringed by stuffed skunks, squirrels and wild boar, nary a torture device on view.
We’re in Lacoste, France, pausing at the midway mark in a Wayfarers’ week-long walking tour of Provence. We’ve already tromped up the hillside to see the marquis’ castle, his base for kidnapping locals for his sexual perversions in the 1770s and now a restoration in progress by fashion designer Pierre Cardin.
It’s a quirky stop that few travelers would make in this village of fewer than 500, and that’s precisely the Wayfarers’ point. Only by lacing up your boots and slowing your pace, they contend, can you truly experience a place.
It’s travel at the micro level, and in Provence that means from the roots up – the roots of grape vines, lavender plants and olive trees.
After a pickup in Avignon, the walks unroll up and down the slopes of Luberon, a broad swath of Provence with its own mountain range, regional park and, perhaps most important, wine appellation. Most of the harvest is in by mid-October, but plenty of clusters are still soaking up the legendary sun.
Provence is “the garden of France”: Fruit and herbs thrive in its gravelly soil. Since the stray grapes are so good, surely a green olive plucked from the branch will be, too? One hiker tries it, spitting the bitter fruit into a tractor rut. We’ll wait for restaurant olives, thanks.
Indulging the senses
Much of the week is experiential: What does wild thyme smell like crushed between fingers? How does red wine taste a week after crushing? How can I get the orange stain from the Ochre Museum off my fingers?
We’ve hit the Wayfarers’ max of 17 in a group, many couples and old friends on an adventure together. Spring tends to attract younger walkers, autumn, older. “It’s the older mother and father, and they’re doing it for themselves,” said walk manager Eric Bonal.
Bonal is partnered with walk leader Marie-Ange Mas, who shepherds us over hillsides and through ancient stone villages. Bonal handles the logistics and pops up with snacks en route.
He creates a painterly still life in front of the 11th-century stone church used in the film “Manon of the Spring.” Another day, he set-designs the goodies with pumpkins and bittersweet on the old stone wall of an olive grove. For a retired military commander, he’s tres artistic.
Food and shelter are big components of the trip with treks up to 10 miles a day. Breakfast is the light pastry and coffee of a French daybreak; lunch is substantial; dinner, elegant. We bed down in crisp-sheeted luxury, in small, intimate inns that are landmarks in their villages.
A taste of brilliance
Four nights are spent at properties where Edouard Loubet wields the whisk; at 24, Loubet was the youngest French chef to receive a second Michelin star. He’s famous for an extravagant use of Provencal herbs in unpredictable combinations.
At La Bastide de Capelongue, for instance, his cedar-flavored duck is plated with a fir sprig and pine cone. Loubet has resurrected the Middle Ages custom of pauses between courses, marked by mini-dishes called entremets – desserts can be four courses. His signature crême brulées can be spiked with philodendron, acacia or lavender – ours was jasmine tea.
“The trip is beyond my expectations,” said Bonnie Fischer, a walking first-timer from Newport, R.I., American headquarters for the British Wayfarers. “I never thought the meals would be so elaborate.”
Helen Hartfiel, a Wayfarer veteran, could do without the feasts. When she spots another walker eating a rare salad, she marches over to the table and demands one for herself and others craving greens. The salad bowl appears magically at every subsequent dinner.
“On the other tours, we always had a choice for the meals,” she said over a set lunch of Moroccan lemon chicken in the village of Roussillon.
Hartfiel also misses the daily events that Wayfarers organized in Yorkshire. “We went up to the tower with the local bell ringers, and got a great taste of the culture.”
But the pace and itinerary are just fine with her husband, Bill, a power walker who clocks 75 minutes a day in Minnesota. “This is our 15th tour, and we’ve never had a bad experience.”
Wayfarers rates its Provence walk “moderate,” but routes seem crafted for hard-core walkers like the Hartfiels. Some days are vertical climbs and descents over stone-rubble paths, others, ankle-twisters along rutted farm lanes.
Day 1 should have been a clue: a giant loop from Lourmarin, hitting 12 miles on my pedometer by mid-afternoon with at least another hour to go.
“I remember walks like that in the Army,” recalled Walter Sichel, a World War II veteran from New Jersey, two weeks away from his 79th birthday.
The countryside is the focus, and it can be frustrating to tromp through villages voted most beautiful in France – Lourmarin, Menerbes, Gordes – and have no time to poke around. Sensing the group’s restlessness, Mas and Bonal quickly shuffle the walks, since the original 9-to-5 hiking schedule allows no loitering. The leaders are quick to resolve any problems, and their van – “sag wagon” in hiker’s parlance – is always at the walkers’ command.
The hike is light on historic and cultural narration, leaving many sites without much context. “I’m disappointed in the forest walk, that there’s no identification of the plants,” said Lucy Hartwell of Minnesota.
A birder with more than 3,000 species on her life list, Hartwell discovers there’s no time for her passion. “I love to walk, but I’m a walker who likes to stop, smell the flowers, listen to the birds. I guess I’m more of a meanderer.”
Different walks of life
Following the leader is just right for Debbie Nightingale of Connecticut. “There’s so much to see,” she marveled. “I prefer the narrow view you only get walking.”
Hiking was an alien concept to Michele Priest, a New Zealander who’s walking with her fiancé and future mother-in-law.
An assistant director in television, Priest usually steers clear of any group travel, especially with a bunch of older Americans. “But all my prejudices have been exploded,” she said. “Everyone talks about interesting things. And it’s fabulous because we don’t have to worry about getting a hotel or where we’re going to eat. All I worry about is what photograph to take.”
And her hiking prep? About a week before the trip, Priest called her fiancé. “‘I’m going for a walk. Of course, I’ve got high heels on and I’m going to buy cigarettes, but that’ll count, won’t it?’
“I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it, I was so far out of my comfort zone. But by the middle of the first day, I thought, ‘Yeah, I can do this.’ It’s amazing the distance you can cover. It’s just step by step, and the miles peel away.”
Betsa Marsh, author of “The Eccentric Traveler: A World of Curious Adventures,” is a Lowell Thomas Award winner from the Society of American Travel Writers.
The details
France has more than 72,000 miles of marked walking paths, and The Wayfarers will cover some of the most scenic in its six-night “Pathways of the Impressionists” walk in Provence, Sept. 10, Oct. 1, 15 and 29. Cost is $3,595 per person, double occupancy. The price includes all tips for overnight stays and meals. Tips to the walk leader and manager are at the walker’s discretion. Airfare is additional.
For a Wayfarers catalog or more information, phone 800-249-4620; or visit thewayfarers.com.
Depending upon air and train schedules, most travelers will need to overnight in Paris before or after the Wayfarers walk. I recommend Sofitel Roissy Paris Charles de Gaulle Aeroport, 95713 Roissy-en-France. Phone: 33 149 19 2929; sofitel.com. The hotel runs a free shuttle to and from de Gaulle airport. Doubles $144-$344.
