Montagne Sainte-Victoire

Mont Sainte-Victoire is a limestone massif about 18 kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide, oriented east-west, east of Aix-en-Provence. Its highest point, the Pic des Mouches, reaches 1,011 metres, while the Croix de Provence, 19 metres high and inaugurated in 1875, stands at 946 metres towards the western end. Under the cross is a seventeenth-century priory, whose chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire dates from 1657.

Paul Cézanne painted it many times, between 80 and 87 canvases depending on the counts, which gave it worldwide renown. The site has carried the Grand Site de France label since 2004, over a perimeter of about 34,500 hectares. Its pale cliffs light up in pink and orange tints at sunset, and many hiking paths cross it, including the classic climb to the cross. In August 1989, a great fire ravaged more than 5,000 hectares of the south slope.

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