Basilica of St Maximin Provence France

Your question title has the St. Maximin Basilica in it but your question is about Provence, a large area. Could you be more precise.

• There are 3 "Saint-Maximin" in France, in the départements of Gard, Isère and Oise, none of which are in Provence.
• There is a "Sainte-Maxime", Var. Which is on the Côte d'Azur, just across the bay from St. Tropez. This is nearly but not quite in Provence.
• Finally there is a "Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume" in Var, 40 km (25 mi) east of Aix-en-Provence. Perhaps this is what Grace Alison meant.

Unfortunately I know nothing about any of these places.

Grace, Provence is a large area of South-East France. It would take many days to tour the whole of Provence.
I am afraid one of the lessons to be learnt in researching a place is that unless you use the full name of a place, correctly spelled, you are liable just to cause confusion.

Thank you for your prompt reply to my inquiry. As you can see I am blind on the
internet searching for clues to my destination. I am writing a book and want to research
places where Mary Magdalene lived. I saw pictures and information for Gothic basilica at Saint-Maximin
which I thought the website said was in Provence. I also understand there is a grotto where she
lived nearby.

Aha, problem solved.
I got the list of St Maximin's from Wikipedia. Click here for the article on Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume. It has a big section "The cultus of Mary Magdalene".
French Wikipedia has an even bigger article on the Basilica ("Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine", click here), you could run it through Google Translate if the French is too much. Marie-Madeleine is French for Mary Magdalene.

A newspaper article wouldn't bother to give you the full address with postcode, and in most cases when a place has a long name like Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume it just gets shortened in normal use. But, when you don't know where it is you need the full name.

Yes, St. Maximin Ste. Baume is in Provence east of Marseille and Aix, and yes, her skull is in the crypt. You can also hike up to the cave where it is said she lived the last part of her life. It's halfway up the Ste. Baume mountain. You'd need a driver to take you up to the hostel and parking lot that leads to the grotto. I don't know how to get to St. Maximin from St. Tropez as I've always been in a car driving on the autoroute between Marseille and Nice, which passes right by it, when I've gone there. It's quite inland from St. Tropez.
Have you searched on Cruisecritic.com for transportation info?

Merci for your generous information. What I want is a guide. Someone who knows
the Mary Magdalene sites and can pick us up from the port in St. Tropez and take us there. I do not want the confusion of
driving in a country I do not know the rules of the road.