Provence: Avignon to the Gorges du Verdon

Stand on the floor of the Roman theatre at Orange and find the colossal statue 3.5m high in the central niche of the stage wall - long called Augustus, though its head is a later replacement and some date the whole figure to the 2nd century - then climb to the top rows

Walk the Palais des Papes and work out where Benedict XII's old palace — a fortress set straight on the rock of the Doms — is stitched to Clement VI's new one, then find Matteo Giovanetti's frescoes in the Grand Tinel, the Consistory hall and the chapel of Saint-Jean

In the castle of Tarascon, find the 15th-century cell whose walls are covered in ships — medieval boats and war galleys scratched by Catalan sailors held prisoner by the king, alongside a chess board and verses from the Book of Job — then the apothecary of the hôpital Saint-Nicolas in the outbuildings, with over two hundred faience pots from Saint-Jean-du-Désert and Montpellier in its 18th-century panelling

Walk the two tiers of galleries round the 25,000-seat amphitheatre and count the medieval defence towers still standing on it — the arena spent centuries as a walled village holding more than two hundred houses and two chapels, and the last of them were only pulled down on 30 December 1840

Ride the Digue à la Mer east out of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, with the sea on one side and the lagoons on the other, to the Phare de la Gacholle, built on the dyke itself in 1882, and call in at the information point the reserve's volunteers keep open at the foot of the lighthouse

Walk the seven kilometres of path across the 60 hectares of Pont de Gau towards sunset, when the flamingos, herons and egrets come in close, and find the wildlife care centre that takes in around 350 injured birds a year — the same place that took in starving flamingos when 90 per cent of the Camargue lagoons froze over in February 2012

At the Château d'Estoublon outside Fontvieille, taste the single-variety olive oils against one another — Grossane, Salonenque, Bouteillan, Béruguette and Picholine, all crushed at the estate's own mill under the AOP Vallée des Baux-de-Provence — then judge its AOP Les Baux de Provence wine from the organic vines on the south flank of the Alpilles against the oil of the same ground

Across the road from the Glanum ticket office, where you can see them for nothing, read the north face of the Julii cenotaph — SEX.M.L.IVLIEI.C.F.PARENTIBVS.SVEIS, three brothers to their forebears — and pick out the battle of Zela on three sides of its base and the boar hunt on the fourth; then on the municipal arch beside it find the seated woman on a heap of captured arms and the Gaulish prisoner with his hands tied behind his back

Walk the long circuit of the Sentier des Ocres at Roussillon, the 60-minute of the two waymarked loops through the abandoned quarries, and pick out the eroded pinnacles known as the aiguilles des fées standing above the ochre face called the chaussée des géants

Climb the stepped lanes of Bonnieux to the Vieille Église, listed since 1980, and find where the Romanesque work gives way to Gothic in the same building — then from the terrace outside pick out Lacoste on its own spur across the plain, mont Ventoux beyond it, and on the way back down the remains of the 12th-century towers and walls and the thirty-metre tour Philippe of the late 19th century

In the Renaissance wing at Lourmarin, climb the great spiral state staircase and find the chimneypiece whose caryatids have Amerindian faces, then step out onto the loggia and work out where the chapel stood before it was moved to make room for it

Walk both marked footpaths at the Colorado Provençal and try to count the shades of ochre in the eroded cliffs — the source claims more than twenty — then find the fairy chimneys and the Dôa, the stream that cuts the old quarry floor

Stand in the village and follow the 135 m chain across the ravine to the star, then count its points: five, on a 115 cm star hung in 1957, not the sixteen of the Blacas legend — and it fell again in 1995 and was found at the bottom of the ravine before the village paid to have it regilded

Walk the Sentier Blanc-Martel from the Chalet de la Maline to the Point Sublime and find four things on the way: the étroit des Cavaliers where the walls close to under 300 m apart, the cave of the Baume-aux-Bœufs, the twin monolithic Tours de Trescaïre on the far bank, and, 250 m inside the last tunnel, the window cut in the rock that opens onto the Baume-aux-Pigeons