Tips on Provence

where?

 

My wife and I stayed in Avignon....not a particularly small town....but still quite lovely. Get Rick Steve's France guide book. He knows all the ins and outs of small towns across Europe. I'm sure you can get some great recommendations from that.

Check it out here:

http://www.ricksteves.com/books/provence.htm

 

My mother-in-law, her husband, my wife and I will all be in Provence from September 11th to the 18th. We're staying in St Remy de Provence, which is about 30-40 km south of Avignon.

I can't wait.

Any advice you can give to me or lincolnparkGooner will be greatly appreciated.

We do have some good tour books:

 

bring back as much wine and fresh olive oil as you can.

Rose wine from there and the Riviera tastes nothing like the swill back here.

 

I would also recommend visiting any small market in a village, unbelievable taste.
I once stayed in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, where they have a rather bigger market, especially with antiques and stuff, nice town for a sunday visit.
If you're into nature there's the tourist places like Mont Ventoux, Gorges du Verdon (a Canyon) and Gorges de la Nesque, which I especially liked when driving through while the sun came down in the evening.
Then there's the village and fountain of Fountaine-de-Vaucluse and other small villages worth a visit in the mountain region of the "Luberon". A region that you can also discover by bike, although some streets are rather challenging.
For cities, I like Avignon with the old Pope residence and Marseille, which I would visit by train, with the famous Château d'If from the novel by Dumas to reach via ship.

 

I know you're seemingly preferring the smaller places but (as I think I suggested to Mike sometime ages ago) if you're in that neck of the woods, you've got to go and see some of the Roman theatres and amphitheatres - there's a plethora of them down there (Arles, Orange, Nimes)

And Avignon was in 1987 the first place I came across one of those South American bands with pipes and whatnot. Since then they bred somewhat.

 

I can't wait to see the market in St Remy De Provence. All the books I have said it's a really good one.

Also plan to see the ruins in Orange, Arles, Nimes, and, of course, the Pont du Gard.

 

We stayed at Chateau de Roussan, about two miles from St. Remy. Huge room with private bath, a nice restaurant and game room, plus huge gardens. Supposedly Nostradomus used to live there. The market at St. Remy is great. We had a wonderful time, traveling from there to Arles and Avignon.

http://www.chateau-de-roussan.alpilles.fr/hoteluk.html

We also stayed in Aix-en-Provence, although our hotel were pretty poor. Aix is a fun college town with excellent, affordable restaurants.

Our favorite places in France were actually more the west, near Montignac in the Veyzere Valleys and near Parthenay in Poitou. Specially liked Tennesus http://www.tennessus.com/

Have fun!

 

I spent two weeks in Aix-en-Provence, but it was many years ago. By all means, go the Luberon if you can and go to a market early in the morning wherever you go. I brought back yards of fabric and fresh lavendar as souvenirs for my friends.

Carcasonne is actually more Languedoc than Provence but is a very cool medieval walled city.