Refuge d’Art: Walking Tours among Andy Goldsworthy’s Mountain Art in Provence

Two art walking tours in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, led entirely in English by Luc Richard, state-certified French mountain leader and mountain art guide certified by the Musée Gassendi. The Refuge d’Art Hike is the rustic one: eight days with your pack on your back, and two nights sleeping inside Andy Goldsworthy’s Refuges d’Art. On the six-day Refuge d’Art Day Walks you carry only a daypack and spend four nights at La Bonne Étape, a Relais & Châteaux hotel. Both tours begin and end at Aix-en-Provence TGV station, with a full day at Château La Coste to finish. Groups of 5 to 8.
Autumn 2027: Day Walks from 19 to 24 September, €2,290. Hike from 29 September to 6 October, €1,890. Bookings are open. The May Hike is full, with a waiting list, and one place is left on the June Day Walks.

Bookings are handled by my partner, Vercors Escapade, a licensed French travel agency. How booking works ↓

A collection of contemporary art unlike any other in the world

There is a stretch of southern France that almost nobody walks. It lies where Provence begins to climb into the Alps: two thousand square kilometres (770 square miles) of black marl ridges, beech woods, abandoned hamlets and dry riverbeds, sparsely populated, poorly served by roads and, for reasons that have everything to do with a handful of stubborn people, home to roughly a hundred works of contemporary art.

The story begins in 1994 with an invitation. The Musée Gassendi, in Digne-les-Bains, asked the British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy to come and work in the mountains above the town. What began there ended up pushing a small provincial museum out of its own walls. Other artists came too, making work in the landscape itself: permanent, site-specific, unguarded, unlit, unsigned. Thirty years on, carried forward ever since by the museum’s team, that first invitation has produced the Collection d’Art en Montagne: a body of work spread across the Haute-Provence UNESCO Global Geopark with no walls, no opening hours and no queue.

The guiding idea comes from the philosopher Pierre Gassendi, born here in 1592, who gave the museum its name and the project its motto: ambulo ergo sum: I walk, therefore I am. The museum means it literally. These works show themselves only to people who have walked them, and nobody else.

In 2023 the Pôle Ambulo (the Musée Gassendi, the Maison Alexandra David-Neel and the Cairn art centre) was designated a Centre d’art contemporain d’intérêt national by the French state.

Refuge d’Art: Andy Goldsworthy’s most ambitious work

Of all the artists who came here, the British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy stayed longest and went furthest. Over nearly two decades he built Refuge d’Art: a single, continuous work of art that unfolds along 150 kilometres (93 miles) of mountain paths.

Refuge d’Art is a single piece, and the route through it belongs to the work. It links three monumental dry-stone cairns, the Sentinelles, and a series of ruined shepherds’ huts and roadside chapels that Goldsworthy rebuilt stone by stone, each one housing a single sculpture, each one with a door, a fireplace, a wooden bench, and a key. They are called refuges because that is what they are: you can sleep in them.

There is an enormous difference between seeing a piece of art for a few minutes in a museum and one that you actually live with for a little while and sleep with. Sleeping with a sculpture, it’s a beautiful idea. — Andy Goldsworthy, interview, 2002.

This is one of the largest concentrations of Goldsworthy’s work anywhere in the world, and the only place where he built work you are meant to sleep in. In 2026 he received the Praemium Imperiale for sculpture, awarded by the Japan Art Association and often described as the Nobel of the arts.

He is not alone out there. The Dutch artist herman de vries has left gold-leaf inscriptions on bare rock. The American Richard Nonas, an anthropologist before he was a sculptor, has marked the tension between human settlement and wild ground. Joan Fontcuberta, Reno Salvail, Till Roeskens and others have added work of their own.

Almost none of it is signposted. Much of it you would walk straight past.

Two ways to walk it

I have been guiding this route for eight years, in French. From 2027 I am running it in English, for small groups of English-speaking travellers.

Both tours cover the same collection and both end the same way, with a full day at Château La Coste.* They are two different trips. On the Hike you carry your pack, sleep twice inside Goldsworthy’s refuges and wash at the spring. On the Day Walks you carry a daypack and come back each evening to a four-star hotel.

Most guests come alone or as a couple. They are typically between 45 and 70, regular walkers without being athletes: teachers, architects, doctors, curators, retired professionals. Almost none of them are art specialists, and none need to be.

* On scheduled departures, the last night is spent in Aix-en-Provence, with an evening walk through the old town before dinner.

Coming as a group of your own? Either tour can be taken privately, for two to eighteen people, on your own dates — and a private group can spend that last night at Château La Coste itself. Private departures →

Refuge d’Art Hike, Andy Goldsworthy’s art in Provence: day by day*

Full immersion: five of Andy Goldsworthy’s Refuges d’Art, two Sentinelles, and two nights spent sleeping inside his sculptures.
Next departure: 29 September to 6 October 2027. Bookings are open. The May 2027 departure is full. Places often free up, so write to me if you would like to join the waiting list.

The complete Refuge d’Art trail runs for 150 kilometres (93 miles) and takes about ten days. This tour walks the best of it, some sixty kilometres (37 miles) over six days, with transfers across the linking stretches so that you spend more time in front of the works than on the road.

Day 1: Aix-en-Provence to La Bonne Étape

I meet you at 4:00 pm at Aix-en-Provence TGV station, or at Marseille Provence airport if you land there before 3:00 pm. From there we drive north in a private vehicle, about 1 hr 10, watching Cézanne’s Provence give way to the pre-Alps. Night at La Bonne Étape in Château-Arnoux, a Relais & Châteaux hotel. Dinner together and a proper briefing. No walking.

Day 2: Courbons to Thoard, the first Andy Goldsworthy Refuge d’Art

A transfer to the hamlet of Courbons, above Digne-les-Bains, then out along the Siron ridges. A siesta after the picnic, as everyone does here. Late in the day, the Refuge d’Art Chapelle Sainte-Madeleine on its rocky promontory. Dinner under the plane trees at the Auberge de la Forge in the Provençal village of Thoard. Night at the village gîte, a simple guesthouse. 13 km (8 miles) · +610 m / -650 m (+2,000 / -2,130 ft)

Day 3: Over the col de Mounis to Refuge d’Art La Forest

A long ridge day, ending at the most remote of them: Refuge d’Art La Forest, a rebuilt farmhouse with no electricity, no plumbing and no neighbours. Dinner cooked on site. Your first night sleeping inside a Goldsworthy: one room for the whole group, wooden benches, your own mat and sleeping bag, a fireplace and candles. 13.5 km (8.4 miles) · +830 m / -730 m (+2,720 / -2,395 ft)

Day 4: The Dromon chapel and Goldsworthy’s Sentinelle du Vançon

Down through the woods to the chapel of Dromon, whose crypt holds Roman-era remains, then to the first of the great Sentinelle cairns, standing alone in the Vançon valley. The afternoon is deliberately free: rest, laundry, reading, deckchairs by the river at the Gîte des Monges in Authon. 9.7 km (6 miles) · +440 m / –300 m (+1,445 / -985 ft)

Day 5: The high point, col de la Croix de Veyre

Transfer by car to Feissal. Up over the col de la Croix de Veyre at 1,886 m (6,188 ft), then down the Descoure ravine to find de vries’s fenêtres (windows). A stop at the village bistro in Barles. Night at the Flagustelle guesthouse in Verdaches, in the old village school. 12.6 km (7.8 miles) · +500 m / -910 m (+1,640 / -2,985 ft)

Day 6: Bicycles, a fossil velodrome, and a second night inside a Goldsworthy

The one morning we don’t walk. The guesthouse lends us old Dutch bicycles for a long, easy freewheel down a quiet road at a 5% gradient, through the clues de Barles, narrow gorges cut through the limestone, and past the Sentinelle du Bès, with works by other artists along the way. A car is available for anyone who prefers not to cycle.

Then on foot, up the bed of a fossilised river, to Refuge d’Art Vieil Esclangon in the ruins of the abandoned village. A short climb to the viewpoint over the Vélodrome, a twenty-million-year-old river delta turned to stone and tilted on its side, one of the most remarkable geological sites in Europe. Transfer and a short walk to Refuge d’Art Ferme Belon, with its great fireplace. Dinner by candlelight, lamb grilled over the embers. 11 km (6.8 miles) · +475 m / -385 m (+1,560 / -1,265 ft)

Day 7: Goldsworthy’s River of Earth, then Aix-en-Provence

A last short walk from Ferme Belon down to Draix, a transfer and a brief climb to Refuge d’Art Bains Thermaux for the picnic. Back into Digne for the Musée Gassendi and Goldsworthy’s River of Earth, the work that gathers the whole week into a single room and, in my experience, the moment the trip finally makes sense to people. On the autumn departure, the afternoon also takes in the house of Alexandra David-Neel.

Late afternoon, we collect your suitcase at La Bonne Étape on the way and drive south to Aix-en-Provence, about 1 hr 45 in all. An evening walk through the old town, along the plane trees of the Cours Mirabeau, past the fountains and into the Mazarin quarter, then dinner and the night at the Hôtel des Augustins. 3.7 km (2.3 miles) · +70 m / -210 m (+230 / -690 ft)

During the Musée Gassendi’s building works, the museum visit is replaced by a visit to the Cairn art centre

Day 8: Château La Coste

Twenty minutes’ drive out to Château La Coste, then the guided Art & Architecture Walk in English through the morning. Lunch at the Tadao Ando Café Restaurant. Cellars and wine tasting in the afternoon. I drop you at Aix-en-Provence TGV station (or Marseille airport) at 5:00 pm.

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Refuge d’Art Day Walks, Andy Goldsworthy’s art in Provence: day by day*

Five of Andy Goldsworthy’s Refuges d’Art, a Sentinelle, and a Relais & Châteaux hotel to come back to. Next departure: 19 to 24 September 2027. Bookings are open.

Some people want to see this work without carrying a backpack over a 1,886-metre col, and there is nothing second-best about that. You carry only a daypack, and you still stand inside five of Goldsworthy’s rebuilt refuges, chosen with the weather and the group, before finishing in front of River of Earth at the Musée Gassendi.

Day 1: Aix-en-Provence to La Bonne Étape

4:00 pm at Aix-en-Provence TGV station, or at Marseille Provence airport if you land before 3:00 pm, then about 1 hr 10 north to La Bonne Étape in Château-Arnoux, your base for four nights. Dinner together.

Day 2: Two Andy Goldsworthy Refuges d’Art in a day

Two short walks, and two of the rebuilt refuges. In the morning, an out-and-back from the village of Thoard to the Refuge d’Art Chapelle Sainte-Madeleine, perched on its promontory. Picnic. In the afternoon we drive round into the Vançon valley for the walk in to Refuge d’Art La Forest, the most isolated building Goldsworthy rebuilt. Hotel-based visitors do not normally get to see it. Night at La Bonne Étape. 4 km (2.5 miles), +300 m (1,000 ft) in the morning; forty-five minutes each way, +200 m (650 ft) in the afternoon.

Day 3: Roche Rousse and the sanctuary of nature

A day dedicated to herman de vries more than to Goldsworthy. We climb the right bank of the river Bès through black pine and oak to a rocky ridge above the valley, then into the bois sacré, the wood he considered inhabited by spirits, where he built his sanctuaire de la nature. A tiny Orthodox hermitage makes the picnic spot. Coming down, we pass beneath the vertiginous blade of Facibelle, and on the drive back we stop at the “ammonite slab”, a two-hundred-million-year-old sea floor standing on end. Night at La Bonne Étape. 5 km (3.1 miles) · +420 m / -380 m (+1,380 / -1,245 ft) · about 4 hours

Day 4: Refuge d’Art Vieil Esclangon, the Vélodrome and Alexandra David-Neel

The left bank this time, and the walking turns into a time machine: you cross the reddish bed of a tropical lagoon where palms, dwarf rhinoceroses and large wading birds lived twenty million years ago. Refuge d’Art Vieil Esclangon answers the climb, and a short scramble opens the view over the Vélodrome. In the ruins of the old village, herman de vries’s gold-leaf traces; in the Bès valley below, a Sentinelle.

Back in Digne, the recently restored house of Alexandra David-Neel and its museum of Asian art. Opera singer, anarchist and orientalist, she was in 1924 the first European woman to reach Lhasa. Night at La Bonne Étape. 5.6 km (3.5 miles) · +280 m / -330 m (+920 / -1,080 ft)

Day 5: Refuge d’Art Ferme Belon, Goldsworthy’s River of Earth, then Aix-en-Provence

We check out and drive to Draix for the last Goldsworthy of the trip: Refuge d’Art Ferme Belon, reached along the rim of canyons carved into black marl, a landscape that looks less like Provence than like the moon. Picnic at the refuge. In the afternoon, the Musée Gassendi and River of Earth, the work that gathers the whole week into a single room. Then south to Aix-en-Provence, an evening walk through the old town, dinner, and the night at the Hôtel des Augustins. 4 km (2.5 miles) · +150 m / -150 m (+490 / -490 ft)

During the Musée Gassendi’s building works, the museum visit is replaced by a visit to the Cairn art centre

Day 6: Château La Coste

As for the Hike: the short drive out to Château La Coste, the guided Art & Architecture Walk in English, lunch at the Tadao Ando Café Restaurant, cellars and wine tasting, and Aix-en-Provence TGV station at 5:00 pm.

*Both itineraries may be slightly modified in the event of bad weather, significant group fatigue, damaged paths or any other circumstances beyond our control. During the tour, the guide remains the sole authority on the schedule and may adjust it at any time for the safety of the group and the smooth running of the trip.

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Where you stay: La Bonne Étape and the Hôtel des Augustins

La Bonne Étape, a Relais & Châteaux in Château-Arnoux

La Bonne Étape has been a Relais & Châteaux since 1971, and its restaurant, La Table de Jane, has held a Michelin star since 1964. It is a family house, handed down from father to son and now to daughter. Jany Gleize trained with Alain Chapel and the Troisgros brothers; his daughter Jane learned her trade in England, at the Waterside Inn. The vegetables come from the hotel’s organic garden, the lamb from Sisteron, the olive oil from Les Mées. There are eighteen rooms, each furnished differently with antiques, a swimming pool and an English garden. We dine at the Bistro Gaby, the family’s bistro, named after Jane’s great-grandmother, or on its closing days at a restaurant of the same standard. On the Hike it is your first night, and your suitcase waits for you there. On the autumn Day Walks it is home for four nights.

Swipe or scroll for more. Photos © La Bonne Étape

Hôtel des Augustins, a former convent in Aix-en-Provence

On the last night of both tours we sleep in the old town of Aix, at the Hôtel des Augustins. Its reception occupies the chapel of the convent of the Grands Augustins, built in the fifteenth century and listed as a historic monument: you check in under stone vaults. The rooms are in a wing of the old convent, a few steps from the Cours Mirabeau, so the evening walk through the old town and dinner are on the doorstep.

Swipe or scroll for more. Photos © Hôtel Les Augustins

The accommodation described above is given as an indication and may be replaced by an equivalent establishment if circumstances require.

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Château La Coste: the counterpoint

The last day is a shock, and I put it there on purpose.

You arrive off a week in which nothing was signposted. Above Digne, the works are unlit and unlabelled; several of them you would walk straight past, and I have watched people do exactly that before I told them what they were missing. No guards, no opening hours, nobody else on the path. Goldsworthy rebuilt those refuges out of the stones lying around them, and reaching one takes five hours on foot.

Then someone hands you a glass of rosé on a terrace, in the middle of two hundred hectares (500 acres) of vines.

Château La Coste holds more than forty works on a four-kilometre (2.5-mile) circuit through vineyard, olive grove and stone pines: Louise Bourgeois, Richard Serra, Ai Weiwei, Bob Dylan and a dozen others, among buildings by Tadao Ando, Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry and Renzo Piano. Each artist chose their own site and made the work for it. Everything here is confident, generous, and built to be looked at. Ando’s concrete art centre stands in a shallow lake with Bourgeois’s Crouching Spider reflected beside it; I think it is one of the finest things put up in Provence in the last fifty years, and I never tire of watching people come round the corner and stop in their tracks.

Two collections, both of them art placed outdoors to live in a landscape, at opposite ends of what that can mean. My guests usually begin to understand Digne on the drive south to La Coste, and they go on understanding it long after they are home.

Oak Room: where the two collections meet

Halfway round the circuit there is a low doorway in a dry-stone wall, and it is Goldsworthy again.

Oak Room (2009) is a chamber built into that wall from around twelve hundred pieces of Burgundy oak, interlocked so tightly the structure carries itself. You stoop to get in. Inside it is dark and it smells of wood. It is one of the most impressive Goldsworthy works I know, and anyone who has spent the week sleeping in his shepherds’ huts recognises it on sight: the same low door, the same insistence that you go in instead of looking, the same use of what was already on the ground.

In the afternoon we go underground into Jean Nouvel’s winery, ten metres high and seventeen metres below ground, for a tour of the cellars and a wine tasting.

Wine has been made on this land since Roman times; the Palladian country house dates from 1682, and the estate has been certified organic since 2009 and biodynamic since 2013. After a week of food cooked over a fire in buildings with no electricity, it is a very agreeable way to come back to the world.

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Your guide: Luc Richard

[The guides] will be guardians and interpreters of the sculpture, the walk. Because the sculptures are not just the stone, it’s the whole house, and the whole walk. The whole thing is a piece of art. The guides will be critical to making it function as a complete form. — Andy Goldsworthy, on the guides of the Refuge d’Art, interview, 11 April 2002

In July 2026, The Connexion reported on the launch of these English-language tours in an article by Jessica Jones.

What previous guests say

Five-star Google reviews left by guests on the French-language editions of these tours, translated from the French.

Read more reviews

Everything is taken care of from the moment you arrive

From 4:00 pm on Day 1 at Aix-en-Provence TGV station until 5:00 pm on the last day at the same station, you do not have to organise a single thing. No hire car, no rural bus timetables, no taxi negotiated in French at a station where nobody speaks English, no wondering where lunch is coming from. I meet you on arrival. There is a dedicated vehicle for the whole trip. Every transfer, every night, every meal and every entrance ticket is arranged and paid for in advance.

The food

Dinners on the Hike are cooked on site, on a wood fire or in the fireplace: fresh goat’s cheese, vegetables, pulses and spices, country bread, lamb chops over the embers. Ingredients are organic and local, bought in bulk in glass and paper, part of a deliberate low-waste, low-carbon approach. It is also why we carry our own luggage between refuges, instead of having it driven by 4×4. Picnics are made fresh each morning.

Tell me about allergies and dietary requirements when you book and I will build the menus around them.

Prices and what they include

Refuge d’Art Hike: 8 days / 7 nights

• €1,890 per person (approx. US$2,150) for the departure of 29 September 2027
• The May 2027 departure (€1,690) is full; ask me about the waiting list
• Group of 5 to 8
• 35% deposit on booking, balance due 30 days before departure
• Options, chosen on the booking form:
  • Single room, nights 1, 4 and 7 (La Bonne Étape, Authon and Aix-en-Provence): €440 (approx. US$500)
  • Sleeping kit rental, €70 (approx. US$80): Valandré Mirage down sleeping bag (750 g, comfortable to 0°C / 32°F), inflatable mat and pillow, silk liner. It waits for you at the guesthouse in Thoard at the end of Day 2.
  • Insurance: cancellation insurance, repatriation assistance insurance, or both combined

Refuge d’Art Day Walks: 6 days / 5 nights

• €2,290 per person (approx. US$2,600) for the departure of 19 September 2027
• The June 2027 departure, at the Villa Gaia, has one place left at its launch price of €1,590 (approx. US$1,810), single room €440
• Group of 6 to 8
• 35% deposit on booking, balance due 30 days before departure
• Options, chosen on the booking form:
  • Single room for the whole stay, nights 1 to 5 (La Bonne Étape and Aix-en-Provence): €690 (approx. US$780)
  • Insurance: cancellation insurance, repatriation assistance insurance, or both combined

Included in both

• All accommodation, from the night of Day 1 to the night before departure
• All meals from dinner on Day 1 to lunch on the final day: dinners, breakfasts and picnics
• All transport from Aix-en-Provence TGV station onwards: station or airport pick-up, every transfer during the trip, and the drop-off at the end
• Guiding throughout, in English, by a state-certified mountain leader and Musée Gassendi certified mountain art guide
• All entrances and visits: Musée Gassendi, Dromon chapel (Hike), Maison Alexandra David-Neel (Day Walks and the autumn Hike), the guided Art & Architecture Walk at Château La Coste, and the cellar tour and wine tasting
• Bicycle and helmet loan on Day 6 (Hike)
• Cutlery kit, watertight picnic box and metal plate, given to you on the first morning (Hike)
• Professional guide insurance including search and rescue

Not included

• Travel to Aix-en-Provence TGV station or Marseille airport, and travel after the end of the tour
• Any transport during the tour for personal convenience
• Drinks, alcoholic and soft, other than those included at certain accommodations and at the Château La Coste tasting
• Insurance: repatriation assistance and medical expenses cover, which is required to join the tour, and cancellation insurance, which is optional. Both are offered on the booking form.
• Personal expenses
• Nights before or after the tour

Dates and booking

Refuge d’Art Hike, Andy Goldsworthy’s art in Provence, with two nights inside the Refuges d’Art: 29 September to 6 October 2027.
Refuge d’Art Day Walks, Andy Goldsworthy’s art in Provence, with four nights at La Bonne Étape: 19 to 24 September 2027.

Bookings are open on both. Groups are small, and September and October bring the best light of the year here, with warm days and cool nights. In spring, the Hike (25 May to 1 June) is full, with a waiting list, and the Day Walks (3 to 8 June, at the Villa Gaia) has one place left.

The departure is confirmed as soon as five people have booked on the Hike, or six on the Day Walks, and I email everyone the same day. Please do not book non-refundable flights until you have that email. If the group has not formed 60 days before departure, I cancel and refund your deposit in full.

How booking works

I design these tours and lead them myself. Bookings, contracts and payments are handled by my partner, Vercors Escapade, a licensed French travel agency based in Die, in the Drôme, with whom I have worked for ten years.

The booking buttons take you to the agency’s booking form. You choose your options there, pay a 35% deposit, and receive your contract from the agency. As a licensed travel agency, Vercors Escapade holds the financial guarantee required by French law, so the money you pay is protected.

I see every booking as it comes in, and I write to you myself.

Travel insurance: what it covers · Booking terms and conditions

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Getting here

By air. Marseille Provence airport (MRS) has direct flights from London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich, Geneva and most European hubs, with one-stop connections from North America and Australia via Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt or Istanbul. The airport is about twenty minutes from Aix-en-Provence TGV station, and I can meet you at either. See the map at the top of this page for how it all fits together.

By rail. Aix-en-Provence TGV is three hours from Paris. There are direct TGV services from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, so you can land at CDG, walk to the platform inside the terminal, and be in Provence the same afternoon. From London, Eurostar reaches Paris Gare du Nord, with a change of station to Gare de Lyon for the TGV south.

At the time of writing, a direct OUIGO train leaves Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2 at 12:35 pm and reaches Aix-en-Provence TGV at 3:50 pm, just before we meet. Timetables change every December, so check yours when you book your flight. On OUIGO, a suitcase larger than cabin size has to be added to your ticket when you book.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to speak French?

No. These tours are run entirely in English, for English-speaking groups. All commentary and briefings are in English, the guided tour at Château La Coste is in English, and I handle every interaction with drivers, hotels, refuge keepers and museums on your behalf. Bring the three words of French you enjoy using; you will not need a fourth.

Once I reach Aix-en-Provence, is everything else arranged?

Yes, completely. I meet you at 4:00 pm on Day 1 at Aix-en-Provence TGV station, or at Marseille airport if you land before 3:00 pm, and there is a dedicated vehicle for the whole trip. Every transfer, night, meal and entrance ticket is booked and paid for in advance, and I return you to the station at 5:00 pm on the last day. Between those two moments you need to organise nothing.

How fit do I need to be?

For the Hike: graded 3/5. Three to six hours of walking a day, an average of 480 m (1,575 ft) of ascent, on natural mountain paths, carrying a pack of around 8 kg (18 lb) including food and water. It suits regular walkers in good general condition. It is not an athletic challenge, and the pace is deliberately moderate.

For the Day Walks: graded 2/5. Two to four hours a day with a light daypack, suitable for anyone who walks regularly. Neither tour is a performance, and I adapt the route to the group.

What is it actually like sleeping inside a Refuge d’Art?

Rustic. These are rebuilt farm buildings and chapels in the middle of nowhere: no electricity, no running water, no beds. You sleep on wooden benches or the wooden floor, on your own mat and in your own sleeping bag. There is a fountain nearby for filling bottles and washing, and a latrine outside. There is a table, a fireplace, candlelight, and a sculpture by Andy Goldsworthy in the next room. Our group has the building to itself: nobody else is admitted on the nights we are there. On the Hike you do this twice, with comfortable guesthouses and hot showers on the nights in between.

I’m flying from a long way away. Should I come a day early?

If you are coming from North America, Australia or Asia, yes. Landing on the morning of Day 1 and starting a walking tour that evening is possible, but you will spend the first two days catching up with yourself. Spend the night before in Aix-en-Provence and give the morning to the old town: the Cours Mirabeau, the Mazarin quarter, the cloister of Saint-Sauveur and Cézanne’s studio. The extra night is yours to book. Tell me when you reserve and I will suggest a hotel and a short walking route.

Do I need to buy a sleeping bag?

Only if you want one. A good lightweight down bag costs €300 to €400, so I rent a complete kit for €70 for the whole trip (details under Prices). You add it on the booking form. I take it up to the guesthouse in Thoard before the trip, so it is waiting for you at the end of Day 2 and never goes in your hold luggage. Most guests flying in choose it.

Can I have a single room?

On the Hike, yes for three nights: Night 1 at La Bonne Étape, Night 4 at the guesthouse in Authon and Night 7 in Aix-en-Provence, for €440. The other two guesthouse nights are in shared rooms of two to four with private shower and toilet, and the two Refuge d’Art nights are communal by nature. On the Day Walks, a single room for the whole stay, at La Bonne Étape and in Aix-en-Provence, is €690 (€440 on the June departure at the Villa Gaia). You add it on the booking form. Numbers are limited, so book early.

I’m travelling alone and haven’t asked for a single room. Who do I share with?

With another solo traveller of the same sex: a woman with a woman, a man with a man. I never put a man and a woman together unless they have asked me to.

On the Hike that applies to every night except the two spent inside the Refuges d’Art. On the Day Walks it applies to your room at La Bonne Étape and in Aix-en-Provence.

And if there is nobody to pair you with, you keep the room to yourself and I don’t charge you the supplement.

The two nights inside the Refuges d’Art are different. There is only one room and we all sleep in it, men and women together, on wooden benches.

What about luggage? I’ll arrive with a suitcase.

Not a problem, but the answer depends on which tour you choose.

• On the Day Walks, your suitcase comes with you. You keep the same room at La Bonne Étape for four nights, and you walk with nothing more than a daypack for the picnic and a water bottle.

• On the Hike it stays behind, but for less time than you might think. You have it on the first night, at La Bonne Étape; you leave it there on the morning of Day 2, and we collect it on the afternoon of Day 7 on our way south, so you have your own clothes back for the evening in Aix-en-Provence and the day at Château La Coste. You walk with a rucksack of around 8 kg (18 lb), food and water included, and I send a detailed kit list when you book.

Whichever tour you choose, please bring one suitcase each, no more than 70 cm (28 in) tall including the wheels, 70 litres and 20 kg (44 lb), plus your walking pack. Hard cases on wheels are fine. A couple sharing a single suitcase can bring a larger one, up to 100 litres and 30 kg (66 lb). The minibus takes eight guests and all their luggage, but not eight large suitcases.

Is this suitable if I’m travelling alone?

Very much so. Most guests come alone or as a couple, and the small group is a large part of why people book. What they have in common is a willingness to spend a week somewhere quiet with a small number of interesting strangers.

Do I need to know about contemporary art?

Not at all, and it probably helps if you have no fixed views. Guests regularly tell me they booked for the walking and went home having changed their mind about what art can be. Out here art sits in stone, in weather, in the slow work of time.

What insurance do I need?

There are three different things, and they are worth separating.

• Mountain rescue is covered for everyone, automatically. My professional guide insurance pays for search and rescue, including helicopter evacuation from the scene of an incident to hospital. You have nothing to arrange and nothing to pay.

• Repatriation assistance and medical expenses cover is required to join the tour. You can take out the agency’s repatriation assistance insurance on the booking form, or use your own policy, in which case the agency will ask for the insurer’s name, its assistance telephone number and your policy number. If you live in the EU, bring your European Health Insurance Card as well.

• Cancellation insurance is optional. It is offered on the booking form, on its own or combined with repatriation assistance. I would take it if you are travelling from outside Europe.

How do I book?

Through the booking buttons on this page. They take you to the booking form of Vercors Escapade, the licensed French travel agency that operates the tours. You choose your options there (single room, sleeping kit rental on the Hike, insurance) and pay a 35% deposit. The balance is due 30 days before departure. Your contract is with the agency, which is what gives your booking the financial protection French law requires. I see every booking as it arrives and write to you myself.

When is my departure confirmed?

As soon as five people have booked on the Hike, or six on the Day Walks, I email everyone the same day to say the departure is confirmed. Until you have that email, please do not book non-refundable flights. If the group has not formed 60 days before departure, I cancel and refund your deposit in full.

What happens if the weather turns?

Spring and autumn in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence are usually dry, warm by day and cool at night, but storms are always possible and temperatures can drop quickly at altitude. The kit list covers it. If conditions require it I will modify the route, and the guide’s decision on the day’s programme is final, and always taken in the interest of safety and comfort.

What if I have to cancel?

More than 30 days before departure, cancelling costs 10% of the price of the tour, with a minimum of €50. After that, a sliding scale applies, set out in full in the booking terms and conditions. Cancellation insurance is offered on the booking form, and I would take it if you are flying in from a long way away.

When exactly are the 2027 departures?

In autumn 2027, the Refuge d’Art Hike runs from 29 September to 6 October (€1,890) and the Refuge d’Art Day Walks from 19 to 24 September (€2,290). Bookings are open on both. In spring, the Hike (25 May to 1 June) is full, with a waiting list, and the Day Walks (3 to 8 June) has one place left. Groups are small: five to eight on the Hike, six to eight on the Day Walks.

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Ready to walk?

A hundred and fifty kilometres (93 miles) of trail, the best sixty of them on foot. A hundred works of contemporary art that nobody guards. Two nights inside a sculpture by Andy Goldsworthy, or four in a Relais & Châteaux. And a last day among vines and Tadao Ando concrete, with a glass in your hand.

Book the Refuge d’Art Hike • Book the Refuge d’Art Day Walks. Or write to me directly at luc@lucrichard.fr, or +33 6 08 16 66 44 on WhatsApp or Signal. I answer every message myself, and I would far rather talk it through before you book than have you arrive on the wrong trip.

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Find out more

• Musée Gassendi: the Collection d’Art en Montagne
• Haute-Provence UNESCO Global Geopark
• Digne-les-Bains tourist office: the town, the thermal baths, and what else to see in the area.
• Maison Alexandra David-Neel
• Château La Coste
• The French-language editions of these tours
• Diese Reisen auf Deutsch: Übersicht auf Deutsch
• L’Art en montagne, the Musée Gassendi collection, Éditions Fage, 2024, texts in French and English
• Refuges d’Art, Andy Goldsworthy, Éditions Fage, 2008
• Rivers and Tides (2001) and Leaning into the Wind (2017), Thomas Riedelsheimer’s two documentaries on Andy Goldsworthy

Tours operated by Vercors Escapade, licensed travel agency.
Luc Richard · luc@lucrichard.fr · +33 6 08 16 66 44 · lucrichard.fr

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