How pleasant it is to step onto Eurostar in St Pancras and shimmy off to France so smoothly that your complimentary Champagne barely ripples in the glass. A change of platform at Lille and you're heading south on the TGV, to the blue skies of Avignon and the vineyards of Provence.When we arrive in Avignon, we bypass the car-hire desk and instead, jump into a local taxi that takes us through lush vineyards to the ancient duchy of Uzès. From here, my husband Nick and I banish all further forms of transport. We will be travelling on foot, following the line of the crumbling Roman aqueduct over the famous Pont du Gard and then onwards to the stone stronghold of Castillon-du-Gard – 20 miles in all, three days on foot.
"You're absolutely sure about not having to walk with all our stuff on our backs?", my husband asks again as we speed uphill into Uzès. I am sure. Our luggage will be whisked ahead of us every day. Walking holidays arranged by Inntravel are not, mercifully, about privation. And so to our king-size bed in the medieval hotel's attic suite, after a promisingly indulgent dinner involving pâté de foie gras and a velvety Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
Uzès is a well-heeled, good-looking tourist town full of tasteful boutiques and junk shops. But on Saturday it explodes into a rumbustious Provençal market that is clearly the local event of the week. The central square is packed, the streets fanning off it are tunnels of red and mustard awnings; there is even a mobile jazz band. Here we find lavender soap, pottery, asparagus, cherries, goat's cheese, saucissons, rotisserie, oysters, haricots verts, cotton frocks, sandals, jewellery, honey…
And so we begin our walk weighed down by half a roast chicken, a hunk of pain de campagne, a slab of oozing Brie de Meux, fresh goat's cheese, tomatoes, a handful of rocket, a bag of cherries, two ripe peaches – and a stick of honey and almond nougat (the Provençal equivalent of Kendal Mint Cake). We also have rather stylish new hats: a very satisfactory start to the day.
The night's torrential rain has left the countryside steaming and unfurling with greenery: we brush past poppies, cornflowers, vetch and fragrant wild honeysuckle, down narrow lanes, past a series of stone water mills, gradually limbering up and finding our pace. Neither of us are avid walkers – nor, it must be said, particularly fit. I have chosen this route as one of Inntravel's most "relaxing" walks (no punishing mountains), but it turns out to be relaxing in the most profound sense of the word.
As I march along through the gently changing scenery, swinging my arms and breathing sweetly pure air, I feel my whole being relax and my mind wheel free. We don't talk much, but when we do, it's about interesting stuff. Who'd have thought it?
Unusual, too, to fall upon a picnic lunch with such determined hunger. Half a chicken disappears in minutes as we sit under poplars by a waterfall. We had thought we might cheat, if the going got tough, and call a taxi for the second half of the day. But despite Nick's blister (he is wearing his work shoes), he's keen to press on uphill into the garrigue – the rocky scrubland that covers so much of this region, tufty with wild rosemary, thyme, sweet-smelling dog rose and pink cistus.
And so we clamber uphill along stony red paths, past butterflies and rasping cicadas, emerging at the top of a wooded gorge with our hearts beating fit to explode. And there we have the sight of our lives. Drifting over our heads, supremely casual, come a pair of giant Bonelli's eagles, their hooked beaks and cruel talons clearly visible.
From there it's on to our next hotel where we'll rest for a day, the family-run Hostellerie le Castellas in the stone village of Collias, a supremely stylish, yet gloriously eccentric affair. Our bathroom is paved with cobblestones, has a mirrored ceiling and a Roman marble bath (most welcome after 10 miles on foot). Our Michelin-starred meal comes on a series of square plates: tiny shavings of this and that, mousses and foams and timbales of exquisite flavour and audacious design.
Nick is nervous that our next picnic, provided by the hotel, will be similarly nouvelle. But we're given sturdy stuffed baguettes, which see us through more vineyards and up into the garrigue, then down to an arresting sight: the Pont du Gard, its symmetrical, tiered arches marching purposefully over the green River Gardon. This is the jewel of the ambitious 31-mile aqueduct built by the Romans in 19BC, carrying water to the strategic city of Nîmes.
Today it's a big Provençal attraction with an absorbing visitor centre (the bridge alone, we learn, took 500 men three years to build) – but after all that solitude in the hills we've become slightly allergic to crowds. So we return to our walking notes and find ourselves following the aqueduct overland: a crumbling series of low arches dipping and rising, somehow all the more thrilling for its isolation and decay.
I collapse by the pool at our final, honeyed-stone hotel, taking in the long views of serene vineyards and purple hills. My body aches – but in a good way. It's been ages since I really learned something on holiday; more still since I got fit. If carbon neutral travel means stopping to smell the wild roses, then I am an avid convert.
credited to flickr users: feuillu, imapix, masmanimages, catchanel, la_route, langkawi, benteholst, 6eyes, paspog, fotoart1945, eagle-ffm, jasperdo, frenchlandscapes, jacky830, bas_van_gaalen, mike_blanchette and telegraph.co.uk
the writer really worked well just to give the best and complete destination of Provence...imagine he collapse in the last part of destination ;cause for its very far and high place.