From The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

Wine was what had brought me to Provence. Please don’t get me wrong – I am no wine buff. I don’t own a bow tie, and if I were to gain power, I would order the hanging of anyone using the word ‘gluggable’ (also ‘quaffing’ and, indeed, ‘buff’).

But I like wine and – here’s the thing – its pursuit is an admirable way of getting in among the wilder bits of Provence. And in spring you can do so without being blocked by every caravan out of Holland.

So when I arrived, I was pretty excited. I generally am in Provence. The skies were big and blue, the hills herb-scented and the warm air had me throwing off my cardie and contemplating pleasures of the flesh. I’m an incurable optimist.

First, though, I had an appointment with Mary Magdalene. The real one. Provence throws up these surprises (although she was dead, of course – really quite remarkably dead). I found her in the basilica at St Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume. The biggest Gothic church in Provence soared over the little market town like a medieval multi-storey.

The crypt, by contrast, was cramped with marble sarcophagi, and one of these contained the body of the Magdalene. Her severed skull stared from a reliquary on the back wall. Below, a tube contained the strip of her forehead touched by Christ after his resurrection. Blimey. It was a bit soon after breakfast for the depths this opened up.

‘Do you believe it’s her?’ I asked my companion, a local woman. She spun off into the story of how Magdalene was set adrift in a boat from Palestine, fetched up on the Provençal coast and left to evangelise the region. Then she died. In 1279, her tomb was discovered here in St

Maximin. The basilica was built to house the relics. It subsequently became one of the holiest sites in Christendom.

‘Yes, but is it really her?’ My temporary friend threw up a full shoulder shrug. Provençal people can contemplate this kind of stuff and still plan the grocery shopping.

But my brain rattled. Was I indeed just inches from Mary Magdalene? If so, what should I do? Chant? And why couldn’t the Catholic Church give me a clear steer on the subject – either putting up a big sign saying: ‘Here lies the Magdalene’ or chucking away the body parts as a con? Why leave them, sinister and ambiguous, in a murky crypt? Could

Dan Brown be lurking nearby?

The questions piled up, but one quickly rose to the top: was there anywhere I could get a drink right now?

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