We will be in a small village near Goult and Gordes for a week in late September. We will spend our first night in France in the village of Saignon so that we can hit the market in Apt on Saturday morning, then it's off to our gite for the week.

Towns/cities on my must-see list are Arles, Aix and Avignon. I am also interested in Orange, Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (sp??) and Roussillon. We will obviously see Goult and Gordes b/c the are only a few kilometers away from our rental.

Other than these famous places, are there any secret gems that a small, quiet but perhaps have a lvely place for lunch that we might want to see?

The Hotel du Presbytere in Saignon is terrific, and be sure to have dinner there. We enjoyed Loumarin, and also the Monday market in Forcalquier is terrific. The Apt market was almost too big for us.

Try St. Remy, Les Baux, Pont du Gard (Roman aqueduct), Nimes Uzes. If you go to Aix, you can drive another 30 - 40 minutes and get to Cassis on the Mediterranean. It is beautiful.

We ate at Cafe le Gare in Bonnieux. It was filled with locals, very good food and inexpensive.

You could also do a swing around the Mont Ventoux area and visit Vaison-la-Romaine, Malaucène, Séguret, Vaquéras, Gigondas, etc. You can pretty much do the loop of those in one long day.

Do you have my 27 page Provence & Cote d'Azur itinerary? If not, e-mail me at [email protected] & I'll send you one. Do so soon - we leave for France on Thursday.

Stu Dudley

Luckily, we have reservations at Presbytere for the night as well as for dinner! We are CRAZY in that we arrive in Nice and are making the drive to Saignon that same day ( I know, I know - CRAZY), but we really want to go to the Apt market to provision before our stay. We may change our minds, but right now, we are determined to sleep on the flight over.

StCirq, can you tell me more about the villages you mention?

hazardnc,

I found the Provence Byways guide to be a fantastic guidebook for the area. There is a new addition now available-

http://provencebyways.com/guides.htm

The author, Sue Winn, contributes to the slowtrav.com talk forum. There are also a few trip reports on slowtrav.com that you might find helpful.

Buy the guide- you will not be disappointed.

Say hello to Isabelle at Auburge du Presbytere....

I shall - I may be weary, but I will do my best to do it with a smile!

Zoe, I have been a Slowtrav fan for years - I ordered the book per your advice. Thank you

Two of my favorites, Bonnieux and Lourmarin.
Saignon is a delight, Try to have lunch in Sivergues
at the goat farm Les Castelas. The Auberge gets their goat cheese from there and they can make a reservation for you,

Uzes is great. Not a village but a small town. The lovely marketplace changes frequently...flower market one day, food and provisions another, and when no market, the collonaded shops and restaurants are fun.We stayed for a week in a rented house and we would love to go back.

There are so many wonderful sounding towns and yet so little time. How realistic is it to try to take 3-4 days of our stay and make the rounds?

I have read mixed reviews on Avignon and Menerbes - are they must sees or can do withouts? Markets are a favortie pastime for us. We are not knowledgeable on wines, so we can skip those (it'd be lost on us).

Avignon is on my "Top 5 large cities in France" list.

You'll be so close to Menerbes - why not spend 30 mins there just walking around. Menerbes is quite small. Pretty setting.

We've spent around 5-6 weeks total in the Luberon. One of my favorite times of day is just before dusk, when the shadows are long & most of the day-trippers have left. We'll often spend an hour on our way to dinner just driving aimlessly and admiring the countryside - with maybe a stop in a village for a beer or kir before dinner.

Stu Dudley

http://provence.angloinfo.com/information/7/markets.asp

Here's a listing of the markets in Provence. Perhaps you could plan your day trips around the markets? We did & loved it!!!!

Enjoy!

joy/luvparee

The above site says that the large Aix market on Pl Precheurs in front of the Ste Marie Madeleine church is operated daily except Sunday. Other docmentation I have (somewhat old) indicates that it is only Tues, Thurs, & Sat.

Anyone know for sure??

Stu Dudley

I also bought the Provence Byways book. It looks very useful and I'm glad I have it.

Stu -

Only tues, Thurs and Saturday.

-Kevin