3 Best Sights in St-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence

A slick visitor center prepares you for entry into the ancient village of Glanum, with scale models of the site in its various heydays. A good map and an English brochure guide you stone by stone through the maze of foundations, walls, towers, and columns that spread across a broad field; helpfully, Greek sites are denoted by numbers, Roman ones by letters. Note that Glanum is across the street from Les Antiques and set back from the D5, and the only parking is in a dusty roadside lot on the D5 south of town (in the direction of Les Baux). In addition, hours vary, so check ahead.

Two of the most miraculously preserved classical monuments in France are simply called Les Antiques. Dating from 30 BC, the Mausolée (Mausoleum), a wedding-cake stack of arches and columns, lacks nothing but a finial on top and is dedicated to a Julian, probably Caesar Augustus. A few yards away stands the Arc Triomphal, dating from AD 20. A lovely spot for a stroll and within easy walking distance from the city center, the site is open during the day and at night—when it's handsomely illuminated.

Within St-Rémy's fast-moving traffic loop, a labyrinth of narrow streets leads you away from the action and into the slow-moving inner sanctum of the vieille ville. Here trendy, high-end shops mingle pleasantly with local life, and the buildings, if gentrified, blend in unobtrusively.