rishisma

Hi,
I was wondering what people thought were the not to miss cities on the way from Avignon to Nice. I have two days for travel and stopping along the way.

Thanks in advance.

cigalechanta

I think driving to Moustiers Ste Marie, the faience village but mainly to drive through The Gorge of Verdon, The Grand canyon of France that is special.

Underhill

A lovely trip would be to drive to the vicinity of Moustiers and spend the night in the vicinity. For something special, near Riez is the Château d'Esparron de Verdon, owned by a count and his charming Scottish wife. It's basically an up-scale B&B (with a LOT of B cooked to order) and is absolutely delightful. The web site is

http://www.provenceweb.fr/04/ukEsparron.htm

I personally would give the Gorges du Verdon a miss, but then I don't like heights or narrow, twisty mountain roads.

From Moustiers the drive over the Route Napoléon (the one his army followed on its way to Paris) is lovely, as is the small town of Castellane on the way. Grasse is worth a short visit, and on the way down to the autoroute you should stop at old Mougins--it's charming and has a number of excellent restaurants and quite a few galleries.

You probably know about St-Paul-de-Vence, but it's definitely in the don't-miss category.

capo

If you want some spectacular scenery, I'd second the drive along the Gorges du Verdon. If you do that, and head north from Castellane you connect with the N202 which goes past the very picturesque walled village of Entrevaux, and takes you right down into Nice.

If you go along the coast, three places we really liked were Hyeres (very cool old part of town), Bormes-les-Mimosas, and St.Tropez (if you overlook the glitz, it has quite a picturesque old town.)

seagulls

Our trip to Provence is coming up and I'm still not sure which route to take from Les Baux to St. Paul de Vence. Can any of the two drives suggested, through Moustiers Ste Marie to the Gorge of Verdon or Underhill, your suggestion of the Route Napolean, be done in a day without an overnight? Would these routes be better than our other alternative of lunch in Aix and the coastal route recommended by capo? Suffering from not enough time and wanting to have it all! Thanks

capo

Hi seagulls. If you drove the Route Napoléon, from Castellane to Grasse, you'd be driving along the north side of the Gorges du Verdon (for part of the way) anyway, to get to Castellane. From Les Baux, assuming you skipped Aix, I think you could do this in a day but it would likely be a long day.

If you were to take the coastal road, especially in the summer, it would take you quite some time due to traffic. I wasn't necessarily recommending the coastal road, just mentioning cities we liked <i>if</i> one were to take it. A coastal road option you might want to consider is having lunch in Aix (a city I really love), then taking the autoroute to Frejus, where you can catch the N98, La corniche de l'Esterel (see #10 at website below) to Cannes where you can rejoin the autoroute.

http://www.visit-riviera.com/inconto...index-ang.html

rishisma

Can anyone suggest two cities to stop at during the day on the way from Avignon to Moustiers Saint Marie?

I was thinking about stopping at Les Baux and another city. We plan on making it to Moustiers Saint Marie by late afternoon so a good lunch spot would be wonderful.

lobo_mau

La ville de Grasse

Underhill

Grasse is east of Moustiers, a good two-hour drive; so it wouldn't work for lunch. Les Baux is WAY out of the way (and a ruin, not a city), not at all between Avignon and Moustiers. But a good place to stop for lunch would be La Ferme de la Huppe, just down the road from Gordes. In fact, any of the Luberon villages would work very nicely, and most have at least one good restaurant.

If you take the route to Moustiers that includes the motorway, you could stop at Aix-en-Provence for lunch.