Hi there

We're after some feedback on our plan for Provence. We're a family of 5 with small children and are travelling in about three weeks time. We like visiting markets, the outdoors, historic sites.

We are staying close to Orange for 5 nights (we have booked a Gite) and then plan to head to Camargue for three nights/days (nothing booked yet). We have a car. Then drive on towards Spain.

I feel like we might be missing something with this trip. Would love some feedback.

Thanks for your help

We won't necessarily do these in this order

Day 1 - Arrive
Day 2 - Pont du Gard and Nimes?? [1 hr to Pont du Gard or 1.5 hrs to Nimes each way]
Day 3 - Orange [20 min each way]
Day 4 - Gordes and Abbaye Notre Dame de Senanque [1.5 hrs each way]
Day 5 - Avignon [40 min each way]

Day 6 - Baux-de-Provence and Carrières de Lumières ?? on way to Arles. Overnight Arles [2 hrs total to Arles]
Day 7 - Camargue (Le Sambuc, Le Point de Vue, Plage de Piemanson, Domaine de la Palissade)
Day 8 - Camargue (Parc Ornithologique de Pont de Gau and overnight Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer)
Day 9 - Leave

I wouldn't overnight in Stes Marie. I was disappointed in it as a place to visit to be honest.
Perhaps Aigues Mortes would be a better choice. Be sure to visit the Carbonniere tower close to Aigues.

Day 2 - I'm not a big fan of Nimes. How about Uzes instead?? Less driving & more time "being there".

Day 3 - I don't think Orange will take all day. Perhaps a half day at best. How about adding in the Cote du Rhone area. Lots of cute wine villages - Seguret, Vacqueyras, Crestet, even Vaison.

Day 4 visit some other villages in the Luberon also & drive around in the scenic countryside.

I would not visit all the "cities" of Avignon, Nimes, and Arles. What keeps us returning to Provence are the small villages, countryside, and diversity of sites.

Consider as a day trip:
-Aven d'Orgnac cave with stalactites & mites. Michelin 3 star rating - their highest. 1 hr from Orange

- The newly opened Grotte Chauvet Pont d' Arc. Said to be better than Lascaux. We'll be there this June.
http://archeologie.culture.fr/chauvet/fr
25 mins from from Aven d'Orgnac and 1 hr 10 mins back to Orange. But follow the scenic Gorges de l'Ardeche (Michelin***) back to Orange instead

What could be better for the kids - caves with stalactites & mites & cave with pre-historic cave man paintings. I'm not a fan of the Carargue - I would much rather spend my time in the Provence region seein more stuff & perhaps visiting a few farmer's markets.

Stu Dudley

Sweet. Nice find, Stu.

I think kids would enjoy the Camargue a good deal more than wine villages. I mean, it's got cowboys, wild horses, flamingos, great beaches, rice paddies, salt flats, and the lovely town of Aigues-Mortes.

Thanks StCirc and hetismij2, we'll add in Aigues-Mortes. Yes I think we'll be going to the Camargue, pink flamingos are hard to beat when you're almost five years old!

Thanks StuDudley. Uses is a good suggestion.... It has the Harbor museum too (it's amazing how children change what excites you in a holiday!)
Adding in Cote du Rhone area may work too, I'll look closely at that.

The caves sound interesting too. I'll add it to the list.

If people were choosing between Avignon and Arles which would you choose and why?

Thanks everyone. Any other tips on Camargue area would be great. Thank you

Stu, I don't know French beyond the very basics. Is there a page on that website that explains how to visit, and I'll try to sort it out? Thanks.

There doesn't seem like there is an English version. My wife speaks French - so she will do the translating for us.

Avignon vs Arles. Avignon is larger and there is perhaps more stuff to do there. I prefer Avignon.

Stu Dudley

There is no English version.

Open every day of the year.

Adults: 13E
Children under 10: free
Children 10-17: 6.50E

Audioguides available in 10 languages
Guided visits available in 4 languages (according to availability)

Hours of Operation (you should be able to make sense of this without French):

Février, mars (hors vacances scolaires)10:00 – 18:00
Vacances de février (du 6 février au 6 mars) 09:30 – 19:30
Mars 09:30 – 18:30
Avril, mai, juin 09:00 – 19:30
Juillet, août 08:30 – 22:00
Septembre 08:30 – 20:00
Octobre 09:00 – 19:00
Novembre 09:15 – 18:30
Décembre, janvier 10:00 – 17:00

Forgot: reservations over the internet only - no reservations by telephone.

Isn't this the same place? It has an English language section http://en.cavernedupontdarc.fr/


I prefer Avignon for a stay. I think it isn't really that much larger (population wise), but it seems it and I find it a more pleasant place for a stay, I like the big main place with all the outdoor cafes, etc. Arles just seemed a bit sinister to me in a way, general feeling. AVignon is somewhat more central and a better transit hub, also, but that depends where you are going. I suspect Avignon would have more hotel choices, also.

You may find this helpful. It's the website for the Chauvet cave, in English:

http://en.cavernedupontdarc.fr/

I'm also planning to visit Chauvet in June. I generally avoid reproductions--Font de Gaume yes, Lascaux whatever no--but this is supposed to be very well done.

If you're really interested, you might want to watch this documentary about the discovery of the original cave--beautiful photography:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtPd_1uXXlc

Oops--missed that Christine had already posted the English-language website. Ah well.

And I do second the idea of Uzes rather than Nimes. That's where we'll be basing ourselves for the first leg of our trip. It's a beautiful small town with a great market on Saturday, well situated for visits to the unmissable Pont du Gard, as well as the Alpilles area--Les Baux, St. Remy, Arles, wherever else you might wish to go.

The kids will love the Roman theater at Orange, which is otherwise a pretty unremarkable town.

FWIW, the charms of Avignon continue to elude me. I avoid it like the plague. I'd much rather be in Arles, with a great market and, IMHO, much more to see. The outskirts of Avignon are awful, and I don't find the town inside the walls all that interesting.

To each his own.

Font-de-Gaume is not a reproduction; neither is Les Combarelles. Lascaux II is such a good reproduction I can't imagine anyone having an issue with it or even noticing that it's a reproduction. Plus, half the fascination of it is learning how they reproduced it with such precision.

Uzès used to be a marvelous, untrammeled town. Now that it's being heralded on every travel board in the universe, it's fast becoming another St-Rémy or Ile-sur-la-Sorgue. Still nice, but overtouristed.

I agree about Avignon - holds very little appeal to me. I love Arles, even though finding a parking space on market day is maddening.

My wife doesn't like Avignon, I do.
We both prefer Aix. Nimes is too long ago for me, should go back. Got a friend who bought a house there...

Hi there,

I thought I would check back and let you know that we visited the Caverne Du Pont D'Arc today. http://en.cavernedupontdarc.fr/

It was excellent. In April it opens at 10am. We arrived at 10.20. There was a sign out front saying it was already fully booked. Given you need to print out tickets and we made a last minute decision to go due to rainy weather, we naively hadn't booked online, and we were worried we had driven an hour for nothing. I highly recommend booking online and printing your tickets!

Fortunately, upon enquiring, I discovered that there were still places in their English tour at 11.15. She commented that she expected that they would be booked out for the whole day shortly. So we were very lucky. Even luckier when we arrived at our allocated tour time, we were the only ones on the tour, so it was a private tour!

Our guide Reina was fabulous. Spoke excellent English, was brilliant at engaging our kids and most importantly, had actually been in the real cave and was able to provide detailed insight into the difference between it and the reproduction we toured. She explained that the key difference is that the repo is slightly compressed in size and the number of animal bones on the ground is less than the actual, but that the paintings themselves are an exact replica in size, and position.

No photos allowed at all in the cave. Tour times are strict, so don't be late. Get there with plenty of time as the bus tour groups do block up the entrance to the ticket counter and there seems to be an odd system of showing your online booked ticket print out to check in. I think in peak times, this queue could be large. We purchased tickets at the adjoining counter, but as mentioned in peak times, I would expect this to be sold out.

If you have children older than 7 who speak French, there are some fun activities (guided). In April they are offering free admission after 6.30pm.

There is a nice cafeteria on site for lunch. We paid 15E each for the set menu and the food was good.

The same strict security checks we're encountering everywhere in France - bag checks (some sites are also bag scanning and patting down). We were able to take our small backpack in. If it's raining you will need a rain jacket to cover the 300m between the ticket counter and entrance you the cave.

Highly recommended. Thank you for the tip StuDudley. We combined it with a trip to Aven d'Orgnac, with a small discount for having already visited Pont D'Arc. We had a lovely day.

Cheers

Sorry, I've just double checked my pamphlet and it opens at 9am in April. It's worth checking these times as the change with a few odd times in May, July and August. E.G. 15 July fermeture "Tour de France" and a few odd midnight closures.