isabel

For Provence - you mention Arles but that is not near the water. And that region of Provence is really best done by car - places like the Pont du Gard, near by Uzes, St Remy (my preference for a base), Avignon, Arles, etc. But without a car that would be difficult. You might consider a car just for those few days. The 'other' part of Provence is really the Cote d'Azure, centered around Nice. The hill towns in the area are best done by car, but you can get around the coast, including to small towns, by bus and train. One trip I based in Nice and went to Eze, Villefrance and Antibes all by public transportation.

I just looked at my trip report from a trip I took that included Provence (St Remy base), Cote d'Azure (Vence base) and on to the CT area and the travel day getting from Nice to Rapallo was 'the travel day from hell' - three trains. But it was worth it in the end. And that's going from Nice, from Provence it would be even worse. Do it, just be prepared.

Rather than stay IN the CT towns, I suggest basing in Rapallo or Santa Margherita which are great themselves, and easy to do day trips to the CT towns and also Portofino, Camogli and Portovenere.

But that's three different bases so if you want to do Amalfi Coast as well (very worth it) you'd need to pick two. If you want water themed, and no car, then I'd skip Provence (but Pont du Gard is amazing). So yeah, you need to make choices.

An option if you want to minimize those long train rides is to do the Cote d'Azure and fly to Naples for the Cote d'Azure portion.

Here's a couple of my trip reports covering these places.

Provence, Cote d'Azure, Liguria - http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...swiss-alps.cfm

Amalfi Coast - http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ast-puglia.cfm