Lioux: Falaise de Lioux (Madeleine) – 2.5 hours walk

Falaise de la Madeleine is an impressive 100 meter high vertical wall that is situated just behind the small village of Lioux. The ridge goes on for quite a while, but the main 3 km. is just like any mountain ridge with great views in all directions.

This is a nice afternoon walk along the top of Falaise de la Madeleine from the start at Ancien Moulin de Lioux to la Verrerie. You have fantastic views all along at every angle, but you better stop to view the landscape because it’s easy to trip on a stone.

You park at Parking de la Combe, down on the main road to into Lioux from the south, where you have the bridge across the small river. Start the walk across the bridge on the road in south eastern direction towards the Falaise. After only 5 minutes you take the road sharply to the right (yellow signpost here – follow for Roussillon) in south western direction along the Falaise.

You reach the big intersection at Ancien Moulin de Lioux (also a parking here) in another 10 minutes and here pay attention. You do not want any of the big forest roads going from here, but you take the very first path (green markers) that enters the wood on your left (sharp left!) as you approach the parking. This is the start of the green markers that follows along the entire length of the Falaise.

You will quickly enter into the open rocky ridge that goes north eastern direction. You could try to follow the green markers all the way, but you might miss out some because the path is marked the other way; i.e. you see green arrows for people taking this route the other way. Don’t worry about that, just keep left everywhere possible, just about.

View south: Roussillon and Le Luberon (Mourre Negre)

You could of course take the walk the other way. In winter time and early spring, this will mean more shadow along the ridge below (unless you start very late in the afternoon) and you will get a low sun straight in your face going up on the ridge itself. In the summer it does not matter which way you go. It will be hot anyway.

La Verrerie

It will take you about 45 minutes to walk the length of the ridge to the point where you for the first time will see a good track going down on your left, and it takes only 5 minutes to walk down to La Verrerie, where you turn left just before you come to the main house (homemade signpost here). Make sure you pay attention after 7-8 minutes walk from La Verrerie. Here, you meet some houses and a road. Make sure you follow the yellow markers, first sharp left and then sharp right after only some 50 meters.

Lioux village

The path will meet the main road into Lioux from the north about 25 minutes after La Verrerie and now just follow the road through the village of Lioux and further along till you return to the car about 20 minutes later.

Basic information:

Duration:      2.5h (excluding lunch)

Distance:      7 km.

Ascent:         265 m

Difficulty:      Easy

Start/finish:   Lioux (Small parking lot on main road to Lioux)

Map:             IGN 3142 OT and IGN 3242 OT (1cm=250 m)

GPX-file:       Lioux2   (linkto free download from list)

VisoRando Lien.

Pour le fichier GPX, vous pouvez télécharger à partir d'ici (voir ci-dessus) ou mettre à jour via ce lien VisoRando où vous pourrez également voir l'itinéraire sur une bonne carte:

https://www.visorando.com/randonnee-/3140583

For the GPX-file, you could download from here (see just above) or go to this VisoRando link where you also will see the route on a good map.

If you have problems with this VisoRando link, download the GPX-file from above and import it to VisoRando or other application.

Lioux village