La Sainte-Baume

First stop after Saint Tropez was La Sainte-Baume. I have been before to St. Maximim, where I happened to arrive on the one day a year when the gold plated skull of Mary Magdalene is displayed at the cathedral. I was told that the grotto where she spent the last 30 years of her life was “up the road…nearby”. On this visit I decided to find the grotto. French paysan casualness of directions never fails to amaze me. The grotto was a 45 minute drive through beautiful windy pine forests towards the coast. At La Sainte-Baume there is a reasonably priced hotel run by Dominican monks. I was directed upwards towards the grotto…a 45 minute walk. We passed, yes I was accompanied by a groaning teenager, a ‘source’ of holy water, no doubt where the Magdalene herself drank during her period of isolation there. Crosses and notices stating that it was a place of silence dotted the path. At the top, a chapel carved out of the white rocky mountain side, we arrived in time for mass. Two priests in white and a cardinal in red stood at the door of the church as the bells tolled, echoing over the landscape far below. It reminded me of Tibetan hillside monasteries.