Can anyone recommend beautiful and interesting towns or cities to visit in the Provence region? Any favorites? Any routes to recommend for a 4 day trip, without a car?
Thanks!

There are many lovely towns and villages to visit, but not all--especially some of the most delightful--are accessible without a car. You might need to limit yourself to larger cities, such as Avignon and Arles, and check out local bus service to other areas on your arrival.

many of the larger towns in the western part of Proence, including Avignon and Arles as mentioned by Underhill, are along or near the Rhone River so you may want to research Rhone River tours. In 2002, I spent a few days in St. Remy which was a wonderful little town about 30 minutes drive from Avignon or Arles. I stayed at the delightful Chateau des Alpilles, which was only a ten minute walk from the center of town. I toured by car, so I am not sure of the train/bus situation, but many of these towns are quite close together.

You mentioned Chateau de Alpilles was a 30 minute drive from Avignon. Do you remember how far it is from Aix? And what about detouring through LeBaux on the way?

It's a little over an hour from Aix to St. Remy. You can easily stop and visit Les Baux coming from Aix on the way over the Alpilles, if you have a car. Otherwise I believe that the tourist office in St Remy (as well as Avignon) offer tours there.

PBProvence,
Maussane-les-Alpilles

This is "on my list" as one of places I hope to build my trip around. The "ten minute walk" to St. Remy caught my eye. So one could walk to St. Remy, wander around, or eat dinner, and walk back without collapsing? Unfortunately, the way I'm lining it out now, we wouldn't be there on jazz night. Anyone see, Travel and Leisure just came out with a list of secret inns in Provence? Thank goodness - none on my list. I stayed at Tresanton in Cornwall just before it hit every magazine in the country -- holy cow, what that does to prices!

Roussillion!! I spent a week in a house rental near the beautiful village-loved the place. Central to other beautiful villages.

Over in the eastern part of Provence is the lovely hill village of St-Paul-de-Vence, a wonderful place to visit/stay. Just down the road is one of our favorite hotels, Le Hameau, a small inn set in an orchard; it's made up of a number of separate buildings and is altogether charming.

A little west of St-Paul is the hillside town of Mougins, which features art galleries and excellent restaurants. From Mougins you can visit the glass-blowing town of Biot and another charming small town, Valbonne. Up above both is Grasse, famous for its perfume manufacturers, and a pretty town in its own right.

Most of these towns can be visited by a combination of train and bus.

Underhill, I just got an e-mail back from Le Hammeau (probably butchered my spelling ) today. It's one I plan to stay at. They sounded like it's changing owners in January. They weren't sure about reservations staying in the system, so said to check back then.

Do yourself a favor and rent a car. It's not scary - the roads are tiny and the traffic's not bad. You really can't "see" Provence without a car. With one, you can visit st-Rémy, Les Baux, Pont du Gard, Tarascon, Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, etc., and get a true taste of the region.

I'm with StCirq

Do yourself a favour and get a car. It is really easy to navigate the roads of Provence. They are well signposted. Get yourself a copy of the local Michellin map that will help.

You do not say whereabouts in Provence you are staying.

If you are in the West the larger towns of Avignon, Arles and even Orange to the north are certainly worth investigating. The pont du Gard is also in this area and worth a visit.

If you are in the East then highlights would be Aix, Roussillion, Gordes, Ilse sur la Sorgue (Especially if you can make the Sunday market and if you like antiques), Fontain de Vacluse the list goes on.

We stayed for two weeks in the village of Venasque which in itself is a great place to see.

There are a lot of places to see in Provence. I would recommend that you set yourself up to visit a set number and just go for them otherwise you will be chasing yourself all over Provence trying to do too much.

And this is not even mentioning the great places on the coast.

Apologies for the spelling of the place names to the Francophiles on the board. Spelling was never my strong suit.

Steve

Cherikim: I'm interested in your question, and I hope you get some good answers about realistic trips in Provence without a car. If you travel alone, as I usually do, I can understand why you don't plan to rent a car. If, like me, you only drive automatic cars, car rental is a huge expense, compared to taking trains and buses, and just seems to me that it would be difficult to drive alone in unfamiliar places when other drivers are moving at high speeds.

Every now and then I try to "top" a thread I started about a year ago about places in southern France that can be visited easily without a car. If I can find it, I'll post a link to it here. My impression from the answers there is that it is really challenging to try to plan a trip in France without a car--more difficult than in central Italy, for example.

Twice I resorted to taking one-week walking/hiking tours in order to see smaller towns and countryside in France that would have been difficult or impossible to visit without a car. (Very enjoyable way to travel, but expensive.) After my Provence tour was finished I stayed a few nights in Avignon. I couldn't quite warm up to Avignon. However, it is an excellent base for day trips by public transportation. I very easily got to St. Rémy from Avignon, and if I hadn't spent the whole day in St. Rémy and its immediate vicinity, I could've reached Les Baux from St. Rémy very easily by bus or less easily by foot. I also easily got to Isle sur la Sorgue from Avignon and had a choice of good service by both bus and train. It is a slower way to travel than zipping around by car, seeing many places in one day, but it can be done if we're willing to give up seeing many places. Before my Provence tour started I stayed in Aix-en-Provence for a few days. Now that was NOT a very good base for day trips by public transportation. (That was in the fall of 1999. Maybe things have changed since then.) I could have taken day trips to Marseilles and Cassis quite easily by bus, but I really wanted to go to Arles. I did, by bus. It took hours, in horrible traffic that threw the bus way off schedule. I guess it wouldn't have been any better by car, though, since traffic was almost at a standstill for part of the way. It would have been much much easier to get to Arles from Avignon.

On that thread that I started asking about public transportation in France, I did get quite a bit of info re the possibilities of taking day trips by bus from Nice. Also, if you're interested in branching out a bit to Languedoc, it seems that Montpellier is an excellent base for trips by train and an interesting place in its own right.

The best France experts here are people ho always travel by car, so they're not really in a position to give us ideas about itineraries without a car. It might be helpful to research bus service and train routes from some major cities in Provence so you can figure out which smaller towns you might realistically be able to visit from, for example, Avignon or Nice.

I hope you ge some good answers, because I'll have the same question for some future trip.

Here's that thread about places to travel in France without a car: http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34424767

Rent a car!! It is the ONLY way to really see everything...I usually travel alone..rent an automatic transmission and see France!! I have never had any trouble of any kind.

All set with everything for my trip in October. I wouldn't think of doing it without wheels!!

Joan