Apache error when setting up Silex Bootstrap: unable to check htaccess file

Question

I'm trying to set up a website using Silex Bootstrap. I've put it in my folder with other web projects and changed the DocumentRoot in the Apache config.

<Directory /folder/to/silex_projects/web>
     Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
     AllowOverride All
     Order allow,deny
      allow from all
</Directory>

But I can't open the index page of the framework, Apache gives:

[Mon Dec 17 21:10:52 2012] [crit] [client 127.0.0.1] (13)Permission denied: /folder/to/silex_project/web/.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable

I've chmod'ed the whole project folder with chmod a+r -R. Other projects in the same folder are working fine with the .htaccess file.

The .htaccess file does exist.

Answer 1

chmod 755 -R /silex_project/ solved my problem. I still don't know why Apache needs write permissions to work.