By Ellen Barone for Divine Caroline

I went to Provence because of Paul Cézanne and his Provençal landscapes of gnarled olive trees and lavender terraces. I went to meet the wonderful, warm, and sometimes-irascible characters in Peter Mayle’s books. I went lured by the photogenic promise of rolling vineyards and orchards, picturesque hill towns and honey-colored stone farmhouses.

And, I went to walk, to experience, on foot, a Provence that I could see, taste, smell, touch, and hear. Or so I hoped and The Wayfarers’ brochure promised.

Now, after a week of rambling through Impressionist landscapes infused with the perfume of flowering broom and aromatic herbs, lingering over café lunches in pretty villages tumbling down hillsides and attuning my ear to the melodious lilt of Provencal French, I’m hooked.

I realize, of course, that falling in love with Provence is beyond cliché. The region’s legendary charms have seduced and enchanted generations of artists and foreigners. It’s the kind of place where visitors arrive for a week and stay a lifetime. I was prepared to fall for Provence’s culture, character and cuisine. That was a no-brainer. What I was not prepared for was to fall head-over-hiking-boots in love with the pleasures of a walking vacation. The camaraderie. The knowledgeable guides. The exercise.

If you’re picturing grueling marches weighted down by heavy backpacks and Spartan hostel-style lodgings, think again. A walk with The Wayfarers falls into the category of “luxury adventure.” Which is to say, after a day spent wandering along sleepy rural tracks, shaded forest trails, and ancient village streets, and chatting with friendly farmers and villagers, you get to take a long hot bath, eat a gourmet dinner, drink fine French wine, and sleep in the comfort of a luxury hotel. Now, I can’t imagine any other way to discover the flavors, fragrances, scenery, culture, and food of Provence.

There were eight of us: an affable group of outdoorsy, inquisitive Americans. Allan, a genial, retired judge in his sixties, asked me if I’d traveled with The Wayfarers previously. “My first,” I replied. “Our seventh,” he calculated. Allan wasn’t the exception. More than half my fellow hikers, a mix of baby boomer professionals, one mother-daughter duo, a young active woman traveling solo and a pair of fifty-something college roommates, had walked with The Wayfarers before.



Our guide, Eric, a convivial fifty-eight-year-old Frenchman and fifteen-year Wayfarers veteran, brought the landscape to life with his passion and understanding of the history, culture, and people of Provence. Eric could identify any plant that sprouted, explain the life cycle of a grape vine, and seemed to know everyone in every village we visited. There were herbs everywhere—fennel, thyme, rosemary, sage and lavender—and Eric loved to point them out and talk about what made them special.

Behind the scenes, assuring our coddled comfort was tour manager, Antonia, an elegant Brit who’s been living in France since the seventies. From the picnic snacks, to the fruit basket in the van, to the delicious café lunches and multi-course dinners that awaited us each evening, Antonia made it impossible to go hungry. Better yet, she would shuttle you to/from town in the van, drop you off for an afternoon massage, cart your purchases, and, if you asked, enthrall you with tantalizing bits and pieces of her fairy tale life.

Our days in Provence quickly settled into a comfortable routine. Walk. Eat. Walk. Eat. Drink. Sleep. And, despite covering anywhere from six to twelve miles a day, there wasn’t even a whiff of the hard-core-hiker, not-for-softy-writers mentality I’d secretly feared. Sure, it helps to be fit, but it’s not an absolute requirement, and it helps to know about hiking, but that’s not a prerequisite either. The real genius of a Wayfarer vacation is that it’s as much about the essence of the experience—exposure to another way of life, learning a new language, the smells and sounds of the countryside, the enjoyment of fine food and wine and visits with local people—as it is about the walking.

We left Provence on the morning of our seventh day. We packed our gear, had one last delicious breakfast, and, when the time came, boarded our trains and taxis with the slight feeling of melancholy you have when you depart something you know you’re going to miss. All of us were buried in our own thoughts.

Me, I was busy plotting my next walk. They say Tuscany is lovely in September …

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