Les Baux-de-Provence is located in the low mountain range, the Alpilles, and is mostly set on a rocky spur. Indeed, the word baux is derived from the Provençal word for rocky spur and it’s from this particular commune that the name bauxite comes as it was here that the aluminium ore was first discovered in the early nineteenth century. The elevated location involves a winding, mostly shallowly inclined ascent to the spot where buses are permitted to pick up and drop off tourists but not linger any longer than necessary. Swiftly debarking – or as swiftly as cruise passengers who’d only very recently had lunch and drinks ever manage – we were promptly guided up the gently sloping, pedestrianised area around to the main entrance of the town which gave us some views north of the location at the various outcrops that surrounded us.

As impressive as the views around Les Baux-de-Provence were it was impossible not to be distracted by the row of steel plate art pieces that lined the route to the entrance. These were the German artist Stefan Szczesny‘s Shadow Sculptures, the earliest of which he started working on in 2005. In 2019 Szczesny created an exhibition titled Szczesny aux Baux-de-Provence so it was handy that this was the year we were visiting as we’re fond of stumbling on little shows of culture like this. The sculptures typically incorporate abstract female forms, as you can probably tell, and are not supposed to be anatomically accurate, as you can probably tell too if you’ve ever seen a woman.

We were given a quick walk through part of the town by our guide to take us to the key points of interest ahead of a little free time to explore on our own. Les Baux-de-Provence is mostly narrow, cobbled streets rising from the entrance with grey, stone walls and other evidence of the fortifications that sprung up during its medieval historical period. Whenever we passed a point with a view down into the valley around the area and to the houses situated lower down and closer to the occasional streams that flowed during the winter months I felt compelled to snap another shot. Les Baux-de-Provence has some spectacular vistas to gaze out upon and it’s not hard to see why it’s such a popular tourist destination just to visit, soak up those views, and relax outside one of the many little cafés.

Our short walk along the occasionally steep but still perfectly manageable roads brought us to Place Saint-Vincent where two buildings of note were located.

The first building we entered was the Chapelle des Pénitents Blancs (Chapel of the White Penitents). The building was erected in the seventeenth century, the purpose of it being to treat victims of disease and to house deceased members of the brotherhood for whom the chapel was named. In 1937 the chapel was restored and rededicated to Saint Estelle and in 1974 the artist Yves Brayer (for whom there is a museum nearby, although we didn’t have time to visit it) decorated the interior with frescoes depicting scenes from the nativity in the local landscape. The nativity theme is closely connected with the commune which might surprise you if you’ve read the bible and can’t remember the chapters about Provence in it but more about that is explained a little later on.

A dozen or so metres from the chapel was the Saint-Vincent des Baux church. This church dates back to the twelfth century and has an exterior design in the Romanesque style popular in this region of France but is also partially dug out of the surrounding rock face. This would be the second church we’d visited which was incorporated into its natural surroundings, the first being the Rock Church in Helsinki we visited a couple of years earlier. The circular tower on one side of the church is known as the Lantern of the Dead and was lit whenever a resident of the town died.

Inside the church were three naves but while the building itself and a lot of the appearance of the interior felt old much of what was seen of most interest to us was actually relatively modern. The cenotaph, for instance, dates back only to the early twentieth century and the stained glass windows were designed by Max Ingrand and donated to the church by Prince Rainier of Monaco.

We were then given free time to explore and a time by which to be back on the bus. Les Baux-de-Provence isn’t very large – barely a couple of hundred metres in length north to south – so we weren’t scheduled much time here at all and that proved to be a shame. In terms of points of interest there wasn’t a huge amount to see after you discounted the churches we’d visited, and we weren’t bothered about visiting a café or shopping in one of the small number of shops dotted around the streets, but the town did house the ruins of a castle that looked interesting and with a little more time we would have liked to pay it a visit. There just didn’t seem to be enough time to do it justice so we skipped it and had to satisfy ourselves with a gentle amble around in search of more pretty sights to photograph instead.

The Post Tenebras Lux Window is the remains of a house that most likely served as a Protestant temple in the late sixteenth century. The latin inscription translates as “After darkness, light” and ties in nicely with its Renaissance era age.

We stumbled upon several more examples of Stefan Szczesny’s sculptures around the town and in a small, open square some of his other art pieces were on display.

As our time in Les Baux-de-Provence came to an end we passed a gate with a sixteen-pointed star motif on it. This was a reference to the Princes of Baux, the feudal rulers of the location during the medieval period who had fortified the town and who considered themselves descendants of one of the biblical three wise men, Balthazar. Hence the star. You might recall from your Book of Matthew:

Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another path. Balthazar asked his fellow wise men to accompany him to France where he planned to lord it over the peasants but Caspar said he had a hot date he couldn’t pass up and Melchior was worried he’d left the iron on.

For a cruise excursion we thought that we needed just a little more time in Les Baux-de-Provence to really see everything we wanted; half an hour would have been enough to either add in a visit to the museum and a pleasant break in a café or, for a more adventurous trip, take in the castle ruins without introducing unnecessary risk of a heart attack trying to get there and back before the bus left. If you were visiting on your own as part of some time in the south of France then two to three hours should suffice and for the excellent views and just for being somewhere a little different from the typical tourist draws of the region it’s certainly a place we’d recommend seeing at least once.

The small area of Les Baux-de-Provence meant we could leave it until the last minute to make our way back to the bus meeting point. We found it odd as we headed there that some people from our tour group were walking in the opposite direction at quite a pace but assumed that they must have forgotten something or needed to buy something urgently at the last second. You never know when the compulsion to pick up lavender soap will fall upon you.

There was a small delay at the bus location because the bus wasn’t there yet. The limited parking space and time was strictly enforced by the local police so buses needed to pull up, get people on, and get moving as quickly as possible. For this reason, I guess, the bus was scheduled to arrive a few minutes after we had been told to get in position because the excursion operators knew all about the cat-herding qualities and reliability of getting cruise passengers to get to the same place on time. As the bus arrived I couldn’t help but notice that the people we’d seen heading deeper into Les Baux-de-Provence as we left were nowhere to be seen. We boarded. A head count was made. There were discussions. There were frantic looks. Suddenly, we heard an American gentleman talking loudly on his phone.

We’re all waiting on the bus. Where are you? Are you close?
You just head down.
Downwards.
Down.
No, just head down and you can’t miss the entrance.
Down.
Down.
No, not that way, just keep walking down.
Down.

Several minutes and one grumpy-looking police person gesturing at the bus later our transportation was filled with the same number of people with which it had arrived at Les Baux-de-Provence and we set off back through the southern French countryside towards the port and our cruise ship.

In the next post in this Emerald Princess travelogue series I’ll cover our departure from Marseille and a brand new speciality dining experience for us aboard a Princess Cruises ship at the Curtis Stone SHARE restaurant.