Help with Provence/Riviera Itinerary
 

We are taking the train into Marseille late august, planning on staying in Bonnieux the first two nights of our trip, and have 6 more nights in the Provence/Cote d'azur area. I need help with planning what to do in/around Bonnieux for the 3 days, then help with picking one or two home bases for the 6 nights. I don't want to see the bigger cities in Provence - already been there (Arles, Avignon, Aix). We'll have a car but I don't want to spend the whole time driving. Does anyone have recommendations for our trip? My favorite things to do are beach, wandering in charming towns, gorgeous views, great food. thanks in advance!

Staying in Bonnieux gives you easy access to the Luberon villages--and their markets. For the beach you will need to head south, perhaps to Cassis, but be warned that the traffic along the coast in August will be nasty.

You might consider staying in the St-Rémy area for the balance of your trip. From there you could visit the Alpilles villages, Les Baux,the Pont du Gard, Uzès, Tarascon/Beaucaire, and the Camargue. The driving distances aren't far from St-Rémy; so you could do a few sights a day and then spend time relaxing.

In Bonnieux we like to stay at the Bastide de Capelongue. La Feniere, a short distance away from Lourmarin on the road to Cadanet, is one of the best restaurants in the area.

In Bonnieux, we always stop for lunch at Le Fournil, and across from it is a shop that sells great books on Provence, There's a wonderful little shop for embroidered linens. I bought some napkins that have the name of villages we love. Saignon, is a favorite, Lourmarin, both have good restaurants and easy to meander; and In Silvergues you can book dinner at a goat farm where we stayed a week. It's a favorite ara for me, never too crowded.

Thank you all for your messages. After we stay in Bonnieux, we would like to head to the coast and stay at a small hotel on the sea. Do you have any suggestions? I am thinking St. Tropez/Ste. Maxime, Exe, Villefranche, Cap Ferrat, etc. Thank you and PS our budget is about 150 USD/night.

OK, here's our itinerary, please let me know if you think these are good ideas. We'll have a car. We'll stay in Bonnieux 2 nights, St. Tropez 2 nights, Cap d'Antibes 2 nights and Villefranche 2 nights. Does this sound reasonable?

tiesl:

why are you breaking the stay up into two nights at locations relatively close to each other? except for bonnieux, all other locations are easily visited from one base.

i think a better plan is to pick one place to stay on cote d'azur and take day trips from there. i just don't see the benefit from the effort, hassle of moving so much. i think that a lot of people don't think of how much time it takes to make a move from from one hotel to another and since you may want to take day trips from these mini-bases anyway, what's the advantage? for one base, antibes is probably the best for you (we used Nice, but i don't think that's what you are looking for).

i think the only reason to stay overnight in st. tropez is if you want to lie on the beach. the horrendous traffic in aug may prevent you from making a quick day trip that gives you enough time both on the beach and in town.

Here's another vote for staying in fewer places on the Côte d'Azur. For one thing, lodging costs in St-Tropez are pretty high; you can do much better in Villefranche, possibly at the Hôtel Welcome if you can still get reservations. From there you can visit, but not stay at, the pricey St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat area.

Both St-Tropez and Antibes have fierce traffic during August--you can spend an hour getting into and out of the town, which really cuts into sightseeing time. If you want to stay on that part of the coast, consider Juan-les-Pins instead; it has a very nice sand beach.

Is there a reason you're going into Marseille when you're staying in Bonnieux? Avignon would be much closer.

Thanks again everyone for your tips. We bought a France rail-drive pass pretty early on when our itinerary wasn't set - that's why we train into and out of Marseille and also pick up our car there. In retrospect, it definitely wasn't the best choice. Anyhow, for the Cote d-azur portion of our stay, we've decided to stay 4 nights at Hotel Provencal in Villefranche, and 2 in Ramatuelle at Ferme Ladouceur. I hope that sounds like a better itinerary. Hotel Welcome sounded great, but was out of our price range.

Well the locations you've picked make sense but don't know those hotels. Can't find any mention of the Provencal in Villefranche. Is it new? Surprised the Welcome is over 150. It used to be quite good value. Have you checked the other hotels in Villefranche like the Hotel Darse, Versailles, Flore? The Darse us getting good reviews on tripadvisor and several Fodorites have used the others. Another place to check is the Marriott in Cap D'Ail.

You will like staying in the Villefranche area. I have rented a beautiful apartment there in October. It is such a convenient location. You can forget the car for area travel as the bus/train is right there to take you to coastal areas..such as the bus to Vieux Nice in 10-15 minutes.

This area has the most expensive real estate in all of France with the luxurious places for people like Bill Gates, Sean Connery etc. Who knows you may see them on the walking path to Cap Ferrat!!

Easy access to the corniche roads etc. Yo have made a good choice!

Enjoy..............