Day trips from Uzes
 

We will be based in Uzes for a week, August 6-13, will have a car, and are planning day trips; we have 2 sons ages 14 and 20. So shopping will need to be limited!
The Pont du Gard is a definite, and Les Baux with the Carriere des Lumieres has been strongly advised.
We are considering Glanum, Arles, Avignon, perhaps Nimes for Roman ruins.
Any thoughts are appreciated, as restaurant suggestions very welcome!
Thanks in advance!

We were based in Avignon and Uzes was a side trip on a tour we took, so looking at it going the other way!

You don't want to miss Arles -- for the Roman museum! and the Van-Gogh-related stuff (much of it) and the general atmospherics (river, etc.). And don't miss Avignon, as much for the papal palace as the song-famous bridge, plus the walled-city atmospheres and some really great restaurants (****Restaurant Christian Etienne near palais, very pricey but lovely experience). Nimes' amphitheater is indeed impressive and has a good tour, and the forerunner of the Pantheon downtown is cool, but if I couldn't do both Arles and Nimes, my personal choice might be Arles. Others may feel exactly the opposite which is fine.

Have a lovely, lovely time. (I loved Uzes and spent too much in the candy store.)

Any of those places would be fine, I think you probably know the usual suspects, as you've named.

You may be OD'ing on Roman ruins, though. Is that a particular interest?

I did visit Orange from there, also, but again, more Roman ruins. But the amphitheatre there was really impressive, more than some other Roman ruins to me. I was there when they had a nice street market, also, but that's Thursday morning. I wouldn't put Orange above Nimes or Arles, though.

That's quite a lot to choose from for a week.

For spectacular scenery plus a visit to the replica of the Chauvet cave, drive from Uzès north to Pont-Saint-Esprit, then to Aiguèze where you continue on the corniche road above the Ardèche Gorges to Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, the location of the cave replica. Link below to a Google map route.

There's a very interesting documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about the cave's discovery and prehistoric art. It's available from Netflix.

http://tinyurl.com/ardechedrivemap

http://archeologie.culture.fr/chauvet/en

https://picasaweb.google.com/stuartt...arge2006#These pics cover Pont du Gard, Les Baux, Glanum, Van Gogh's sanitarium, St Remy, other Province locales.

Interesting geography north of Uzès at La Roque-sur-Cèze and then northwest to Anduze. Just a bit further to Generargues, where there is an "adventure park" with zip lines, rope courses, etc., many different skill levels. Also in that same vicinity, a bamboo forest.

For a longer day trip, head west to St. Guilhem-le-Desert; beautiful little town in the Cevennes.

Thanks to everyone, we are investigating; we had not thought much about the area to the west and will now do so. Probably not wise to overdo the Roman history, I agree!

For something a little different consider the Camargue area.

We bussed from Uzes to Nimes, then caught a train to Aigue Mortes (& return) as a day trip about 10 years ago. Aigues Morte is a small walled town with an interesting history. You look out over the salt flats from the top of the wall & may also see flamingoes. We took a canal tour, seeing the white horses & black cattle of the Camargue. The landscape here is very different from the surrounding areas.

With a car you would be able to explore a lot more!

A couple other pleasant points south and west are:

* Combining Aigues-Mortes (pretty center and walking all the way round atop the walls) with a visit to the beach and pleasant tourity lanes at Le Grau du Roi;

* Combining Arles with a drive through the Camargue and a stop at Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer

* The pleasant and fairly untouristed Medieval town of Sommieres

* Shopping in Montpellier

* Seafood in Sete

* The high-rising town of Saint Guilhem le Desert with the Abbey on top:
http://www.saintguilhem-valleeheraul...romanesque-art

Thank you all, we are now doing last minute planning!

Hello,

We spent a week in Les Baux with our two girls (then aged 9 and 11) last summer. We did the Pont du Gard as a day trip. We did one of those canoe trips down the Gardon river (8 km)- your boys may enjoy being able to paddle down and jump out of the boat for a swim under the incredible aqueduct!

One of our BEST meals in France was very close to the Pont du Gard in Argilliers. It was called Le Tracteur - very eclectic restaurant/art gallery. Highly recommend.

I really enjoyed the market in Uzes. The girls enjoyed visiting the Haribo candy museum and factory. :)

We all really enjoyed Les Baux - we visited on the weekend when they had medieval demonstrations including the catapult. Your boys might enjoy trying out the crossbow and seeing a duel. The Carriere des Lumieres was also really neat (and a nice respite from the heat)!

There was a heat wave when we were there so Arles was a little less enjoyable during the heat of the day. We preferred returning in the early evening to see one of the shows in the ampitheatre. It was a fun show with the camarguais horses and the "courses" (sport of "French bull running" for lack of a better word). Glanum was a bit of a disappointment for me (but the Arles ampitheatre definitely worth it).

Not sure how far you want to drive but we also did a day trip to the Luberon. We hiked the ochre trail at Roussillon - really cool landscape.

We did stop daily for delicious French ice cream and spent some time in the pool in the afternoons...It was a wonderful vacation!

In Arles, don't miss the great exhibition of 31 original paintings of Van Gogh at the Vincent van Gogh Foundation.
Read more on http://www.fondation-vincentvangogh-...on-modernisee/

>>Saint Guilhem le Desert<,

Note that St Guilhem is over 2 hrs from Uzes. I personally would not want to spent 1 of my 6 available days driving for 4 hrs just to visit an "interesting" village - when there are plenty other interesting villages close by in Provence. I might go there to also visit nearby Clamouse Cave (one of our favorites).
http://www.clamouse.com/en/

If you do visit St Guilhem, plan your visit so that you have lunch there. The main square is an interesting lunch venue. Nice fountain also.

Do you have my 31 page Provence & Cote d'Azur itinerary? We've spent 20 weeks vacationing in Provence - 2 of them in Uzes. If you would like a copy, e-mail me at [email protected] & I'll attach one to the reply e-mail. Specify that you want the Provence itinerary. If you plan to visit St Guilhem or Montpellier - ask for my Languedoc itinerary also.

Stu Dudley

Hi!

I second helenvj's suggestion of Aigues Mortes. I visited for a day back in 2010, and it was amazing. Also there is a little creperie restaurant within the town, i can't remember what it's called now but it's relatively easy to find.

I lived in Nimes for a couple of months, and found it to be a really interesting city. If you do visit, don't miss les jardins de la fontaine. It was beautiful in winter, so will be even more stunning in summer! I found it fun just getting lost among all the streets and stumbling upon cute little restaurants or shops.

Montpellier is great for shopping if i remember right! There is a mall - Centre commercial regional odysseum i think it's called - which was fun to visit if you want to do some shopping (i notice that you mentioned shopping would need to be limited, but just throwing in a suggestion in case :) ).

Pont du gard is a must!

Another thing we did was visit the Haribo factory just outside of Uzes if that is of interest to you and your sons.

I am possibly a little behind on this, but I would also agree that St-Guilhem is overrated (and too far!). I was also going to suggest the Haribo factory.

St-Quentin-la-Poterie is a lovely small town specialising in ceramics, about 10 minutes' drive from Uzès.

Finally I would recommend the Musée 1900 near Uzès. Enjoy!

I too loved the Camargue - we stopped at a 'Mas' or farm which advertised pony rides and rode them out into the outback to view the famous wild horses and flamingos up close. No need to pre-book IME - it was August and me and my then young son just stopped by one.

Aigues-Mortes is exceptional and reeks of history - some Saint Louis launched a Crusade or two from this ancient port.

Salt tours - we also stopped by en route to Aigues-Mortes one of the Salins or salt-making operations - made from evaporating sea water.

I would choose Arles over Nîmes. The <i>maison carrée</i> is an empty shell showing a movie about Roman times in that area in French, meant for school children. Arles had the amphitheater, the underground city, and the very good museum.

wrong tense: "has the amphitheater, etc."

I agree with michael on Arles over Nimes if you must chose one.