Gionos Archives - Com Namibia

Haute-Drome: Giono’s Tibetan Landscapes

July 25, 2026 by Amara Nambinga

To trace Jean Giono’s steps, one can venture into the Haute-Drôme, toward the northern edge of Provence. In 1939, he boards a bus in Manosque, pauses in Nyons to admire its small Italianate square, and the next day continues toward Saint-May. This village clings to vast limestone cliffs. The road dives into deep gorges. In the middle, the Eygues River meanders softly, and the air is still. As you climb along the rock face, two dark shapes come into view: a pair of chamois attempting to cross a scree. They linger for several minutes, and the sound of their hooves tapping on the stones rings through the quiet gorge.

Mount Lure: A Hike Through Giono’s Lands of Freedom

July 19, 2026 by Amara Nambinga

“Hill after hill, you rise on one side and descend on the other, but each time you descend less than you have climbed. Thus, little by little, the earth lifts you up without pretending.”

Thus, Giono describes a journey from Manosque heading north, in Regain, one of his early novels (1930). The mountain that fuels the writer’s heart is the Lure, a massif of the Southern Prealps rising to 1,825 m.

The land of free men

Across its foothills unfolds the Contadour plateau, a landscape the author loved to wander. There, in the 1930s, he even organized gatherings where he spread his pacifism, he, the man scarred by the Great War. This plateau he also made into a character in his novels, as in Regain: “As far as the eye can see, vast and bare, and so flat that it can make the heart ache, that you suddenly feel the need to see something rise into the air.”

Today, the path that traverses the Contadour is partially inaccessible due to landowner disputes. The walk therefore begins higher up, directly on the trail leading to Mount Lure. “Giono was a man of the mountains. Up there, he liked to say that it was the country of free men, of shepherds”, explains Christian Morzewski, from the Friends of Giono association.

Where the wind of always blows

The itinerary, following the ridge line, unveils a majestic panorama. To the north, the Écrins range stands out in the distance. To the west, Mont Ventoux looms alone like a scarecrow. Up there, at the summit, it is the realm of what he calls the “wind of always.” On the route, with the head tilted toward the sky, one can spot bories, old round stone buildings that sheltered shepherds during the alpage season. As one climbs toward the summit of the Lure, forests become sparser, the gray of the rock replacing the green of the woods. On these peaks, before the 20th century, men and women trod, arms heavy with plants – gentian, arnica, valerian – which they sold to pharmacies for their medicinal properties. On sunny days, the gentle aromas exhaled by the mountain are like a reminiscence of that bygone era.

To know

Technical sheet : 300 m of cumulative elevation gain on this 8.5 km route.

Nearby : head west along the ridges to reach the summit of L’Homme, the lesser-known peak.

👉 “In Giono’s footsteps: four hikes along the pen to follow the writer in his country of the heart”, an article to be found in GEO’s Special Issue No. 133 for June-July 2026, “France, our favorite summer strolls”, on newsstands ✨

➤ Do you love GEO? Then to miss nothing, discover our subscription plans to receive GEO at home each month with ease.

The Hills of Forcalquier: A Hike Through Giono’s Peasant Country

July 18, 2026 by Amara Nambinga

Approximately twenty kilometers north of Manosque, the country of Forcalquier plays a central role in Giono’s work. Not so much for the ancient county town, though splendid, which clings to its limestone spur like ivy to an old trunk. But rather for the surrounding countryside, which inspired him with numerous scenes of rural life.

The atmosphere of a rural Provence

Admittedly, these wind-swept plateaus are rather bare, compared to the ones the author described in The Song of the World and The Man Who Planted Trees, at a time preceding the Thirty Glorious Years, when they were the stage of a world dominated by peasants. But today you can still recover there the atmosphere of the harsh earth, tough to work, which pervades Giono’s work. “The region surrounding Forcalquier is the writer’s land of friendship. There he rubbed shoulders with painters Lucien Jacques and Serge Fiorio who, like him, draw inspiration from this rural and peasant Provence”, explains Christian Morzewski, president of the Friends of Jean Giono.

The stroll begins in Saint-Maime, another village perched on rock. The path quickly races toward the heights, passes a XIIth-century chapel, then follows the crest. On the horizon, the peaks of the Écrins massif silhouette themselves like flint. Down below, a few vine stocks can be seen. The last remnants of a viticultural tradition far more developed in the writer’s era. In addition to cereal farming, livestock, and gypsum quarry exploitation, grape wine brought some wealth to the region. But it required the hard work of men.

Today farmers are few and far between

Along the roadside, Jean-Claude Tarsac, 80 years old, lifts from his enormous hands stones at the edge of his sunflower field. “When I was young, there were still a hundred of us working the land here. Today, the farmers are counted on the fingers of one hand”, sighs the man, still sound of mind and body.

The path runs beside an old stone building: La Margotte. Now transformed into a guesthouse, this Provençal farm with a tile roof and red shutters was Giono’s. The writer visited it often, by bicycle or by coach. He employed farm workers there, sometimes put his own hands to the earth, and there he wrote, in one month, A King Without Entertainment (1947).

Technical sheet and nearby

Technical sheet: loop starting from Saint-Maime, 15 km and 270 m of cumulative ascent.
Nearby: go see the Mourres, astonishing stone mushrooms just north of Forcalquier.

👉 “In Giono’s footsteps: four hikes along the writer’s prose to follow the author in his country of the heart”, an article to be found in GEO Special Issue No. 133 for June-July 2026, “France, our favorite summer walks”, on newsstands ✨

➤ If you love GEO, then to miss nothing, discover our subscription plans to receive GEO at home every month with ease.