Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - walking/hiking trails in Provence (St. Remy/Les Baux/Alpilles area)

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walking/hiking trails in Provence (St. Remy/Les Baux/Alpilles area)

Hello does anyone here know of any guidebooks to the trails of this area? Or, can you recommend any guides who will take you on hiking/walking tours of this area? (low key, not camping out and etc) thank you.

BCT Scenic Walking, based in California, has three different week-long walking tours inProvence. It is not "roughing it" at all. The accommodations are all very good.

Anon, Can't recommend any books in English, but if you speak German, take a look at: www.rother.de Their little red walking guides are THE definitive source IMO - I've used them for the Dolomites (Cortina)and Appenzell. I imagine you could order the Provence guide on Amazon's German site: www.amazon.de Hope this helps, Andre

Anon, Just saw that you can order the guides direct from Rother: click on the "Bestellung" link. Andre

Anon, Oops, just saw that they also publish an ENGLISH traslation of the book :) Here's the description from the web site: "Thomas Rettstatt Provence The finest valley and mountain walks 1st Edition 2000 144 pages, 76 photos, 50 maps in 1:25.000 / 1:50.000 / 1:150.000, 2 maps in 1:1.000.000 and 1:2.500.000 Format 11.5 x 16.5 cm, bound in paper boards with a polytex laminate EAN 9783763348015 ISBN 3-7633-4801-8 7,99 £ • 12,95 US-$ • 12,90 Euro The Provence – the land of light and lavender – is not only a travel destination for fans of culture or sun-worshippers, but is also a wonderful destination for hikers. This hiking guide, one of the first on the region Ardèche and Verdon, Mont Ventoux and Calanques, imparts a colourful variety of hiking trip options to satisfy every taste: classic hikes that every visitor to the Provence should take, are presented, as well as solitary trails which can still be considered as inside tips. Families with children will enjoy pleasant beach hikes in the Camargue and varied hikes through woods and vineyards in the hinterland. Ambitious hikers, on the other hand, will not be able to resist challenging excursions to famous gorges and peaks of up to 2000 metres. Thomas Rettstatt has already made a name for himself as an author of various hiking and travel guides. With great detail and knowledge, he describes a total of 50 hiking tours in his handy book, which are generously illustrated with colour photos and colour map excerpts. Tips on cultural and countryside sights, as well as city walking tours through Arles, Nîmes and Avignon, round out the rich collection of information." I entered the ISBN nr (without dashes) on amazon.COM and found 2 used ones for sale. Otherwise order direct from the publisher: E-Mail [email protected] Fax D - +49 89/60 86 69 69 Telefon D +49 089/60 86 69 0 Bon voyage! Andre

Andre, thank you very much! you are most helpful.

The tourist office in St. Remy has a map of the recommended trails and walks. They also offer different guided walks during the year. One of these is a night walk to see the stars (seeing the stars here is truly amazing), another is an evening walk to see the various owls that live in this area. PB

There are several short but interesting trails in Provence in "The independent walker's guide to France". "France on foot"is another good one. AA in U.K. has published several good books also.

Several years ago I bought a book at Barnes and Noble titled something like "Best Hikes in France". It listed quite a number of day hikes with all details. Although the book was newly published I had many problems. At Chenencoux (sorry about the spelling) we followed directions of where to park our car and how to hike to the chateau so that you could approach from down river and then enter at the back, later hiking beyond and taking a train back to your car. Everything was fine until we got to the chateau and they refused to let anyone enter from the back -- we had to hike miles up the river and cross then hike back to enter at the front. We parked our car in St. Remy and took the bus to Les Baux so we could follow what sounded like a wonderful hike back to St. Remy. After visiting Les Baux we tried to start the hike and found that the path had been permanently closed off several years earlier. There was no way to hike back except along the very busy road. We ended up having to get a taxi to take us back to St. Remy. The really frustrating part of that was that we had stopped in the tourist office in St. Remy that morning to confirm all the details and no one could help us with any maps or directions for any hikes -- and no one had heard of this hike in the book from Les Baux to St. Remy.