You don't need a year to fall in love with this idyllic corner of France. LOUISE RODDON takes to the Luberon hills on a rural hiking break

PACKING  for a walking holiday in France should be straightforward. Hiking boots, T-shirts, shorts, a floppy hat and sun cream usually suffice. However, being slightly paranoid, I went that bit further and stashed away an arsenal of gadgets designed, I'm ashamed to admit, to keep Mother Nature at bay.

Here was my dog zapper, an ultrasonic device to deter those vocal hounds that guard country villas. Next, a walking stick, to help with the climbs in the 640 square mile Luberon Regional Nature Park but hopefully a snake scarer too.

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Lastly, mosquito repellent and wasp-sting cream. Yes, you've guessed it - I'm a city girl at heart.

What I hadn't appreciated, was just how charmed I would be by this extraordinarily varied part of Provence. Walking allows insights that you may miss based in a hotel or sealed in a hire car. Chats with farmers, a friendly exchange with a baker in a backwater hamlet perhaps and, of course, there's the scenery, a gradual unveiling of lavender-filled valleys giving way to vineyards and ancient villages perched atop ochre-striated hills.

My itinerary was billed as "easy", a westbound self-guided route through the department of Vaucluse, the city of Avignon's hinterland which author Peter Mayle so vividly evoked in A Year In Provence. I'd be hiking from one country hotel to the next, resting primarily in villages neighbouring the tiny medieval hamlet of Ménerbes where Mayle lived.

Each daily walk was to be different in texture and length, building in miles as the week progressed, with my luggage transported by our tour rep.

I kicked off with a seven-mile forest hike where gaps in the pines revealed views of distant turreted chateaux. I would often hear cuckoos and once saw a vulture.

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Sweet-smelling gorse and pine needles added a fragrant accompaniment and butterflies of every hue fluttered in front of me.

In the hill-hugging village of St-Saturnin-les-Apt, I encountered sandstone houses and quiet squares, one of which housed the Hotel Le Saint Hubert, with its bar full of pastis-quaffing locals and bedrooms like Van Gogh paintings.

At dinner I agreed with two fellow hiking ladies from Manchester that this was the loveliest hotel, not least for its panoramic terrace where I savoured a homely meal of goat's cheese salad and coq au vin while taking in a scene of darting swifts and dusk-darkening valleys.

Keeping my own pace, I descended overgrown pathways towards Roussillon. This is one of France's "Beautiful Villages" (152 were designated in 1982 in a rural tourism drive). In parts it has suffered the "Mayle Effect", its squiggly lanes overrun with tourist shops and tea salons.

Gordes too, though stunning, felt tourist-heavy but my base on the fourth day was a miniature perched hamlet devoid of crowds: Joucas is determinedly local with life revolving around the friendly bar at our hotel, the Hostellerie des Commandeurs. Rooms are bright with Provençal-style furnishings and an unassuming rustic feel.

My stay culminated in an 11-mile walk from the Cistercian abbey Notre-Dame de Sénanque.

I climbed high into the sprawling Vallon de la Grande Combe with the bald Mount Ventoux (of Tour de France notoriety) in the distance before descending to cherry orchards and the village of Le Beaucet.

It was a heart-pumping five-hour hike aided by my trusty walking stick.

And did I need the rest of my arsenal? Strangely, the dog zapper had a rather odd effect on the hounds. They just wagged their tails. Unlike the poor little dog at the Hotel Le Saint Hubert whose paw I inadvertantly stepped on.

THE KNOWLEDGE:

Headwater (01606 720199/www.headwater.com) offers an eight-night Landscapes of the Luberon package from £1,104pp (two sharing), half board.

Price includes return flights from Gatwick and rail transfers. French Government Tourist Office: 0906 824 4123/www.franceguide.com