Cucuron: Autour de Cucuron et Vaugines

Cucuron Etang

This is an easy walk for almost all year. Fantastic views most of the way, first along the vineyards towards Vaugines, later along the “balcony routes” back from Vaugines towards Cucuron and last down past the old Cucuron Chapel “Hermitage”.

Start off from the end of the Etang in central Cucuron along the GR-markings for Vaugines. You take off from the GR, however, fairy rapidly, following the signposted vineyard route (wrought iron signs) for the first leg of this walk. You will be entering Vaugines at the Church end of the village in about an hour.

Approaching Vaugines

From Vaugines Church, walk through the village lengthwise and at the other end of the village, start by following GR-signs for the Luberon ridge (Vallon de Vauniere). But not for long. About 1 km after having left the village, you take off from the GR (here a forest track) and take off to the left on a mounting footpath. Here you will have the first little climb of the day before it soon flattens out. Walk on to the right for another 4-5 minutes.

Vaugines Church

As you join another forest track (about 45 minutes from the Church), take sharp right and follow the track a bit upwards, then back down to Vallon de Vauniere. Back in Vauniere, take right and descent the valley for about 200 meters, till you see a small path taking off to the left (not marked on maps). Here you will have the second little climb of the day, but at the top you are rewarded by a fantastic view and a wider forest track to follow over to the next valley with magnificent views all along because of recent logging.

Grotte

When the forest track meets up with the next forest track in a T-junction (another 30 minutes), take left and start a small climb up this valley. Keep right at the first cross-road and you will soon be on another small path opening up as the “balcony route” between Vaugines and Cucuron. It will take you about 30 minutes before the path ends up on the Cucuron side on a forest track going up to “la Citerne. Take right here and you see a small Cave on your left. A bit further along, you have a nice place for lunch at the 582 meter point.

To get the last bit of this “balcony route”, you need to climb up along the forest track a bit to the 360 degrees turning of the big forest road just north-east of the where you had lunch. Follow the big road down towards Cucuron, but at the 530 meter point, you take off to the right on a smaller forest track out to the Chapel Hermitage, where you will be in slightly less than one hour from lunch.

Chapel "Hermitage"

You continue the path south of the Chapel (signposted 2.2 km to Cucuron) and follow the yellow markings back to the village.

Basic information:

Duration:       5,5h (group of 20)

Distance:      14 km.

Ascent:         400 m

Difficulty:      Easy

Start/finish:   Cucuron

Map:             IGN 3243 OT (1cm=250 m)

GPX-file:       Cucuron1   (Link to 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-/2940659

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.

TET:

31.01.2020: Anne, with lunch after 3 hours at 12.40. 

Cucuron - Vaugines, 3 short to medium walks

The fields and woods between Cucuron and Vaugines are great for short walks. I tend to take a walk in this area several times a week. The views are grand and there is very little traffic, so it’s a very quiet surrounding. I have suggested 3 different routes south of the main road between Cucuron and Vaugines, and 3 routes north of the road. You can of course combine any of the walks.

1. Short walk: GR97 to Vaugines, returning by GR9.

This walk only takes 30 minutes each way, and I tend to use either of these routes as short return walks to Cucuron. You pick up GR97 just outside Cucuron and follow it to the 357 meter point, just south of Vaugines. Take the small alleyway up to the church and return to Cucuron along the GR9, which passes on the northern side of the church. Follow GR9 to the signpost at Guet and take the yellow marked trail down to Cucuron.


2. Short to medium walk with plenty of wines, olives and fruit trees.

This walk will only take you slightly longer than walk 1, say another 20 minutes each way. But with a break, this would be a nice 2 hour walk.

You start again on GR97 from Cucuron, but turn left at the 356 meter point, just ouside the village. Follow the track road all the way down to the 331 meter point, where you turn right. Turn right again after only some 50 meters and simply walk along the lanes all the way to Vaugines, through the 334, 343 and 357 meter points. Continue the same lane up to the church and follow straight on. You pass the 386 meter point and the lane turns into a track road that leads to Roque Rousse. But you turn sharp right (almost 360 degrees turning) up the track road that lead up to the 438 meter point. Here you meet the corner of a large fenced private estate, and you simply follow the track road along the fence back to Cucuron. At the 381 meter point you will meet GR9 and at the Guet signpost, you follow the yellow markers back down to Cucuron.

3. Medium walk into the dense Luberon hills and back through la Garrigue

This walk will take you about 3 hours without stopping, i.e. it’s close to a 4 hour walk with breaks, especially because it can be difficult to find the trail at one point. Start off from the Etang in Cucuron, and take the trail signposted for l’Ermitage and marked with yellow markers. It starts off up the small road to the school. After about 5-600 meters, you meet the GR9 and there is a new signpost. Here you could opt for a longer and sunny start to this walk, by following the GR9 up passed the lovely Chapel de l’Hermitage, and follow the GR9 along the fire road till it meets another fire road coming directly from Cucuron. You simply take left in this junction and follow the fire road up to the 360 degrees turning, marked 627 meters.

On hot and/or windy days, I normally don’t walk up passed the l’Hermitage, but follow the GR9 in the opposite direction, along the paved road for about 200 meters only. On the map, you see a small creek crossing the road at the point where a small trail also crosses the road. You turn right on to this small unmarked trail (and not even marked on the map any longer). You might see some old GR-markings (red and white) because it used to be a GR trail. After a bit, you will notice a large fence going in the direction of the trail on the left side, some 50 meters or so from the trail. This is the fence for a large private estate, and after a while, you will see that the fence turns 90 degrees to the left and climbes up the hill. This is the end of the estate, and very soon, a small trail takes off to the left. Here you start your climb up the hill. After a bit, you pass some ruines of a house (le St-Esprit), but just continue until you meet the large trail (a track road, really), going along the ridge north/south. You take this road north and take a rest at the point marked 582 meters. So far, you have probably walked about 1 hour from Cucuron.

For those of you who opted for the route passed the l’Ermitage and along the fire roads, this is the time to join the rest of us at the point marked 582 meters. Just leave the large fire road in the 360 degrees turn, taking the trail taking down to this point (see map).

From the 582 meter point you follow the track road straight north for 2-300 meters. You want the small path marked on the map, off to the left. It’s easy to find it on the left, just after you have seen a small grotte. It follows around the 560 meter elevation along the dense Luberon hill. It later turns into a small track road, and after passing the 558 meter point you will soon join into a larger track road. Follow this down to the large “round about” at the 416 meter point and further down to Vaugines church.

From Vaugines, you  return along the lane that goes straight south from the main road by the church. Pass the 357 and 343 meter points and continue straight on throught what is known as le Garrigue down to the 316 meter point. Here you turn left along the track road that leads through the Gurrigue lengthwise and you are heading back to Cucuron through the 317 and 331 meter points. Just after the latter, I suggest you turn left up the track road and follow it up till you join the GR97 and follow that back into Cucuron.

Basic information for all 3 walks:

Duration: 1-4h
Distance: 5-12 km.
Ascent: 30-300 m
Difficulty: Easy
Start/finish: Cucuron
Map: IGN 3243 OT (1cm=250 m)

Vaugines: Crete de Grand Luberon, Valon de Figuieres.

This is one of my favourite walk both up and down the Grand Luberon, and one can easily vary the route along the top. Specially on a Mistral day (heavy winds from the north), this walk gives fairly good shelter almost all the way, especially if you follow the main forest road on the Crete and not the Crete itself. It's also a great winter walk. Normally the ascent on Grand Luberon is a long boring climb through dense forest with no views. That could be handy on really hot days during the summer (cool shades), but otherwise a bit dark and dull. This walk takes you to the top by crossing several valleys, thereby giving great views in places. The descent along the old GR9 trail is equally great for its many views. (The GR9 has now changed slightly.)

Park the car by Vaugines’ lovely church and walk along the road that goes straight north, passing the church yard on your right. Another road joins in from the left; and 75 meters later, take the road to the left. You reach a type of “round about” after only 300 meters. It’s an opening in the forest, but you keep right, and almost at the top of the “round about”, take the forest road off to the right. After about 800 meters or 6-7 minutes (20-25 minutes from the car), you reach a small plateau and you take left here on the new forest road going west. This road is actually not on the map, but don’t worry. Keep on this road roughly along the 550 meter altitude line westwards till you reach la Grand Fontaine (the last section is only a good path). Here you are on a small hill where you turn right down the path that takes you to the bottom of Vallon de Vauniere (1h). Here you meet the forest road going up this valley, and take this road upwards only 100 meters before you take off to the left on another forest road. Now you walk across to yet another valley, Vallon de la Figuiere, and follow this road all the way till the top of the Luberon, where you join the road along the ridge at the 890 meter point (2h). It's the GR9 that is marked along the ridge road here (the "new GR9" takes the Vallon de Vauniere from Vaugines and joins the ridge road at the 854 meter point, only some 600 meters further east).

From the 890 meter point follow the GR9 along the ridge westwards over the 902 and 898 meter points in order to enjoy the magnificant views in all directions (do not follow the road for very long). If you need shelter from the wind for lunch, try the climb up towards the 902 meter point, or even better along the main forest road just below here.

I must admit I did not notice where the GR9 takes off down towards Buoux, but from the 898 meter point just continue along the ridge till it stops and continue the large path into the woods at the end. As you see on the map, the path will join the ridge road at the water citern just before the 813 meter point.

After the change of GR9, you have to pay great attention where to take off the ridge road, in order to get back to Vaugines. Only 250 meters after the water citern (or 100 meters after the 813 meter point), you see 2 large cairnes on the left side of the road as the road turns to the right. Here you get on the small path (now not marked, although you see plenty of old GR - marks along the route). This means you have walked about 30 minutes along the Crete. The return back down to the car from here is about 1,5h.

An even smaller path takes off to the left after only 250 meters, but do not take this. The old GR9 follows a very nice route with some fantastic views along the way. Just keep on the path, and you eventually end up in Vaugines.





Basic information:

Duration: 5,5h (including lunch)
Distance: 14 km.
Ascent: 600 m
Difficulty: Moderate
Start/finish: Vaugines
Map: IGN 3243 OT (1cm=250 m)
GPX-file: Vaugines1  (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-/2613295

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

TET:
September 2019  Anne   6,5h and lunch at 12.20: Shaded area under trees up towards 902 m. point.