My husband and I are traveling to France next week, and will have a rental car for 4 days while in Provence. Haven't found much information on parking in my guide books--does anyone have advice? I know that there are car parks in larger towns, but what about stoppping and parking in Gordes, Rousillon, or even-smaller towns? We have a basic itinerary but want to be flexible to stop on a whim----but we don't want to come back to the car to find gendarmes and/or tickets! Any advice is appreciated. <BR> <BR>Second question: any tips on wonderful restaurants in Provence? Any little-known gems? We have the basic guides, but any information on personal favorites is welcome!

Contact the French Government Tourist Office (www.francetourism.com) and request their "1999 France Discovery" magazine. There is lots of neat info, and it's free.

Let's get it straight : parking rules in France are, say, flexible (to say the least ! ). It means that, unlike the States, 30 % of the cars are wrongly parked, without getting a ticket, unless you are really obstruding a fire access or something. In general, on Sundays and between 20h00 and 8h00 everyday, anything goes. Just take a look at the sidewalks and streets of Paris on a Saturday night, and you'll figure ! Otherwise,the parking rules are much simpler than in the States : where there is a non-parking sign (it's a symbol that I can't reproduce here, but the French tourism website will display it), parking is not allowed, period. It's not like in the States, when you have to decipher 2 or 3 signs : "parking allowed on Mondays 9h15 to 9h42 except full moon and during the Ramadan but allowed Thursdays 2h00 to 3h00 AM during rabbits' mating season", and anyway if you have done something wrong a traffic warden comes out of nowhere to put a ticket 30 seconds after you've left !

Marty, we parked in both Gordes and Rousillon without problem. Some towns, especially larger ones like St. Remy, have "pay and display" (buy a ticket good for a specified length of time at a machine, leave it on your dashboard); most smaller ones just have time restrictions, typically two hours. Never got a ticket. Tourist areas like Ponte de Garde and Les Baux have huge, dusty parking areas. <BR> <BR>As to restaurants, we still have cherished memories of the week we spent at Domaine de Valmoraine, a small hotel in an old farmhouse just outside of St. Remy. It had an excellent restaurant; very unpretentious and with a wonderful selection of local wines. The place attracted tour buses at lunch time, but dinner was strictly hotel guests and locals. <BR>

Thank you all so much for your reassuring and detailed replies! I feel much relieved. We are staying St. Remy one night at the Hotel les Ateliers de l'Image, and will certainly check out Domaine de Valmoraine--sounds great!

last July we parked in Rousillon - there's a a parking lot right at the center "square", that had a uniformed parking commissioner of some sort ensuring parking was legal; a few years earlier we just parked on the street, but that was April.In Gordes last July we found easy street parking by looping south then sort of northeast of Vasarely's castle-museum, down the hill a short ways.

Marty, I'll just add that if you do end up parking in a parking structure, I hope you have the smallest of cars! The parking structures we encountered were such a tight fit that the passenger had to get out before easing into the slot. Then the driver had to hope they were skinny enough to squeeze out the door in the 4 inches between cars! All the walls and posts were scraped and blackened from cars hitting them and the turns inside the structure do not accomodate the turning radius of most cars. Stick to the outside parking and you should be fine!