Villa or apartment in Provence...
 

We are planning a trip to France in the spring and are looking at Provence. Can anyone suggest a small village/town to stay in? We need something fairly close to a train station (we will also have a car). Thanks!

If you have a car, why the need to be close to a train station? That would limit you to large towns, such as Avignon, Arles, and Aix-en-Provence. The charming small villages are mostly well away from railroad stations.

There are many small villages and towns to stay in. What are your interests?

We thought the train might be faster to a couple of further away day trips (maybe Normandy and northern Italy). We want to have a place to return to at night...a villa or apartment. We have done several driving trips when we stayed a different place every night or two. Just wanted to change it up a little. We definitely don't want a city like Aix-en-Provence. Maybe there's a small town 30-60 minutes away from train travel? Thank you so much for reply!

Sorry, Underhill! You asked our interests...at this point, we are just thinking of laid-back, relaxed drives. Seeing the countryside. Maybe going to the coast. Don't care much about nightlife other than good restaurants. We'll have 3 couples that like to cook together, drink wine :) Guys may play some golf.

How long are you planning to rent this place? I'm really curious about your idea of a trip by train to Normandy from Provence. I assume you are talking about leaving for several days to do that? So are you looking for a monthly rather than a weekly rental?

If you have a car then you can always drive to the train station, so I woudn't worry so much about that. And there really aren't many small towns that are very convenient to train stations.
Bonnieux would probably be my first choice for a beautiful and relaxing small town atmosphere. Gordes and Rouissillon would also be nice, but will both have many more tourists if that bothers you.

Thanks for suggestions - we will look at all three of these towns...will probably stay 2 weeks...only in the early planning now!

Ah. Another. Menerbes. I just found this gem of a rental tucked away:

http://www.vrbo.com/27824

Is this just for two of you? One issue with so many rentals in Provence is that they are geared for larger groups. Finding just a nice 1 bedroom place is more difficult than finding one with 5 or 6 bedrooms!

If you have a car, you dont need to be in a town with a train station. I agree you may not want to be 50 miles away, but still. Villages don't have train stations, so forget that. You don't have train stations in Provence until a town is about population of 15K or more. The smallest one I can think of in that area is Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, but that is really not a good way to choose, as it's not on the main train line, so you'd have to transfer to get to the main route going north. So you'd waste time doing that, anyway.

However, if you just mean you want to be within an hour's drive of a train station, that's a good idea. the fact is you could stay almost anywhere with that the sole criteria, there are so many places. St Remy would fit the bill as it's a pretty central location and not that far from the Avignon TGV station (or Arles).

People need some better idea on something to recommend somewhere in all of Provence, but if you want to take the train to Italy, that would argue for someplace between Aix and Marseille or between them, maybe. St Remy isn't a bad idea. You won't find many apartments in villages for rent.

We stayed in the village of Saignon and loved it (no train station, though.)
We rented from Henrietta Taylor. She has a few properties in the area and her website is www.henriettataylor.com. She was easy to work with and the house was just as it looks on her website.