Spiritual Hiking on Sainte-Baume

France has many hidden gems. Sainte-Baume is one of those.

Sainte-Baume is a mountain ridge spreading between the departments of Bouches-du-Rhône and Var in Southern France. It is the ridge where Mary Magdalene has lived the last years of her life after being expelled by persecutions from the Holy Land according to legends.

The ridge can be traversed from different sides. One of these sides start in a beautiful and dense forrest. This path has a lot of spirituality to it due to the link to Mary Magdalene. Not only the atmosphere, but also the things and people you encounter there. When I was there with my girlfriend, we encountered a group of women. These women where chanting lovely songs about Mary Magdalene for example.

There are multiple interesting and beautifully carved statues along the hike.

The forrest has a religious-like stillness or calmness to it. Comparible with what you experience in a church.

The hike is relatively easy. It is not steep on most parts and you're not in the open sun while walking through the forrest.

Eventually you'll find yourself on a conjunction of all 4 major paths of the area. Two go upwards, two downwards. The two upward lead to the impressive and daunting ridge or to the enchanting cave where Mary Magdalene lived. The two downward paths lead to way you came and to the way around the other side of the forrest.

My girlfriend and I decided to proceed to the ridge. We wanted to experience the summit and enjoy the impressive view for a while. This path is probably the hardest of the whole area. Still, it is very doable. It's just a bit more rocky and steep compared to the lower parts. And it's totally worth it.

You'll find yourself in a completely different kind of environment once you have climbed this part.

No more calmness. Just rocks, a few bushes, even fewer trees and a lot of high speed winds. This was one of the biggest contrasts I have experienced during hiking. You are completely embedded in a still forrest during the first part. Here you are on a vast ridge open to all violence Nature has to offer. It was complete chaos due to the winds. I couldn't even hear my girlfriend.

The vastness of this open space is incredible and experiencing it after the forrest was one of the peak moments of our holiday in Southern France. The vista here is also one I'll never forget. You could see endlessly far away.

We decided to move towards to the summit.

We climbed to the summit in between the winds which were pushing us up. It became quite dangerous once we got close to the ridge. The wind was blowing over the ridge froom our side and falling off the ridge means certain death.

I experience these moments as thrilling, electrifying and breathtaking. My girlfriend felt a bit unsafe though, so we decided to move to a safer spot while still moving to the summit.

We found a spot which was windless and we immediatelly felt that religious-like calmness again, but this time with a stunning view. Luckily for us, this spot was at the summit. The spot was marked by a cairn. A cross is put in the cairn. We decided to rest and stay here.

We continued our hike after after a couple of hours at the summit. Back to the winds again. We decided to move a bit further along the ridge to see what we would find there and if there would be a path down.

We were rewarded massively by moving further along the ridge as we came across some breathtaking views.

We eventually found a small chapel. I unfortunately have no photos of this building so I shamelessly copied one from Google Images.

We followed a hiking path that said that we should go around the chapel down. But there was no path there (anymore?). I think we found a warning sign as well (if anyone knows what it means, please let me know!). So we decided to go back to where we came from.

The forrest had a calming, grounding effect on us both after the winds we experienced on the ridge. We went to the cave where Mary Magdalene lived. I have no photos of this spot as well since it was forbidden to use your phone. The cave is enchanting. It's dark, humid, peaceful and you hear water droplets echo throughout the cave. There is a small church built on the outside of the cave but that was closed when we were there. I would've loved to experience my first mass here.

We went back to the car after the cave. We decided to take the other way down to see the other part of the forrest. We met a mountain goat here, which was impressive to see.

Close to the car and out of the forrest we looked back once more. We saw the chapel on the ridge.

The moon greeted us close the the spot with the cairn and cross and that concluded one of the peak moments of out holiday.