Best medium sized town in France for a 2 month home base to travel Spain, Italy, and France

Avignon is very nice. Big enough to have lots to see do/eat, but small enough to suit your taste.

I'm not really sure what you mean by a base to then travel to Spain and Italy. Even the borders are not particularly close and to get to places within each country would mean a several day excursion. And to really go into each country would mean a week or more. So why have a base if you plan to travel outside the region?

Great question. My friend has always dreamed of having a 'home' base and staying 3 months to travel around. I told her there was no way I could leave for 3 months but would do 2 months. I am not 'confident' we need a home base either. Perhaps we need to plan better and decide how long in each country. We don't plan to move around too much and want the opportunity to enjoy where we are and not 'do' too much. I have done trips like that before and don't want to feel pressured to go and see and do every single thing. I am thinking RELAX so Provence, then a smaller area in Spain...perhaps a day or 2 in Barcelona then on to some great small town to hang and then on to Lake Como or Portofino in Italy. Maybe 2 weeks for Provence (been there before), 3 weeks for Italy and 3 for Spain. But, again, we want to get somewhere and enjoy where we are if we were going to move around.

I really liked Girona and think it might work as a base for you in NE Spain. (Assuming you don't want to stay in Barcelona, that is. Barcelona has tons to do. I think 2 weeks there would be heaven. But hotels can be sort of pricey.) Girona is geographically well-positioned for visits to Figueres, Cadaques and other beach towns in that area, and Besalu. And that's just with public transportation; you could range more widely by car. A month would definitely be too long to stay without a car unless you wanted to do a great deal of hanging-out in Girona. (Which is lovely.)

If I were going to spend a month or more in one place it would have to be a major city with lots of sightseeing options. I take a lot of day-trips, but it gets tiresome having to rush to get a particular bus or train because the next departure to your destination is 2 hours later. Even places with pretty good rail or bus service often have gappy schedules that have you making undesirable trade-offs--eat lunch or get back to home base 3 hours earlier? Repeatedly spending 3 or more hours a day to get where you want to be is also a pain. Unless we're talking Swiss-level scenery. (And have you checked the cost of Swiss trains?)

The hub-and-spoke strategy can work well on the French Riviera. I took many side-trips from Nice and only scratched the surface. Train and bus service is pretty good in that area. A month in Nice wouldn't be a crazy idea, not least because the city has a lot of interesting, if small, museums. But if you chose to stay in a small town, many of your excursions would have to start with a trip into Nice (or some other larger place) to pick up a train or bus headed to your desired destination, and every different transportation leg means another wait plus the travel time itself. I don't think a long stay in a small town is practical unless you expect to have a car at your disposal.

Provence is tougher if you're depending on public transportabtion.

No to tiny, Uber pricey Portofino. Look at Camogli or Santa Maria Ligure or Rapallo.

we have done many 2 and 3 mos trips. Of course if her dream is the 'home base' one, then off you go, but it means paying double for lodging as trips to Italy and Spain are not day trips. If I were you I would divide the time into three 2 or 3 week segments rather than trying to hub and spoke. Your trips to Italy and Spain are going to be all about getting there and not being there if you are trying to do them in 2 or 3 day trips and if longer then you are paying for a place in France you are not using.

I think that your friend has got the wrong end of the stick someplace, and in any case you do not want to travel this way.

On the other hand, the "home base" idea is worthy. Just plan to have several of them over the course of the 2 months.

One of them could certainly be in Provence, though I would not pick Avignon.

Two months can be epic! Have a blast.

I have been puzzling over this one. I think the problem is that you want to visit France, Italy and Spain which requires moving around and you also want to experience living in a place for awhile. I love doing both and these days we mostly just go to Paris for a month or two. BUT you can't really combine them. You can't see Spain from a base in southern France, or Italy. You can get the best of both by renting places for a week or three in the various areas, but the two goals are not otherwise compatible.

This is my first time out here so I sincerely thank each of you for your thoughts and opinions! So gracious of you to take the time to respond. I am meeting with my friend next week to nail things down more clearly but after reading your opinions, I believe we will need 3 spots to call home!

Adam, why not Avignon? TGV service ...check. Not a beach town...check. Not too big...check. Where would you base? My husband and I stayed in Gordes last fall and it was absolutely heaven. We stayed at the most wonderful place, Bastide' d Gordes...took lots of day trips to nearby villages and loved it but it would be too small for 2-3 weeks.

I would choose Lyon.
The food is better than in Paris, plus you can get anywhere on the train you like.

Lyon is BIG!! And looks a bit chilly if we go in the spring. We will definitely visit though. Everyone talks about the food.

Avignon is lovely and would make a marvelous base to visit parts of France. To see Italy you must stay in Italy. Ditto Spain.

We love long stays and feeling like we live somewhere for awhile, but you have to go to each country to experience each country. Perhaps 1/3 of your time in Avignon, 1/3 in Spain somewhere, and 1/3 in Florence, Italy. Florence is well-located on the high-speed train lines and you can day trip, to a degree, to Rome, Bologna, Venice by train.

Avignon is convenient to get around from by public transportation, if that's what you want to do, but I don't think it's particularly attractive, and driving in and out of it can be a mess. Lyon is admittedly quite large, but it's a great city with so much to see and do. I've visited there several times in the Spring, and it didn't seem particularly chilly. I think we were able to sit outside on our apartment terrace many evenings.

Personally, Avignon bores the socks off me.
Lyon - if you stay in the old part of town - is very interesting and I would not pass up a visit to go there. You can easily avoid the new part of town.

At that time of year, I know where I would set up shop - somewhere between Nice and Monaco. A bit of a hike to Spain but reasonably convenient to nearby Italy, decent weather, good food, especially if you like socca or Italian, and decent trains, although it does take a (very scenic) while to Paris.

@cathy: My comment about Avignon is based in part on the following line of thought.

If you are "home basing" in the Rhone Valley (which is a pretty good idea!) for a week or more, then you really ought to rent a car while you are there. Not to do so is to miss a lot and to spend a lot of time waiting for buses (in the spring especially) while doing so.

You can garage a car in Avignon, but I think it would be easier to wrangle a vehicle in a smaller town. Many of which have a good deal of charm.

As for the TGV connection: You really only need it under 2 circumstances, coming and going. You can collect your care there when doing the former and drop it of as part of the latter.

By the way, I think Lyon is a splendid place and you should consider at least a few nights there at least. But it's not Provence.

I asked this same question of my daughter a while back, essentially the same, where should I go to spend a month in France. She recommended Aix-en-Provence. It is all personal preference, of course, but I'm passing her suggestion along. She lived in France for two years, and hasn't seen every inch of it but she knows my likes, which might be different than yours, etc., but I thought I'd pass it along.

Southwestern France has some really nice areas...we spent 5 weeks in a town called Pezenas. It's closer to Spain than Italy but you can catch a train in nearby Agde and go east/west across the whole south of France. It's a gorgeous little place with winding, cobbled streets, a fantastic weekly market, it's not far from the beach, the beautiful Cevennes (great swimming holes and nice villages), and lots of vineyards and wineries around. The weather will be gorgeous in any of the months you've listed.

Have you considered leasing a car for the duration? That would give you lots of flexibility and allow you to base in small towns and villages which are likely to be cheaper than cities that are transportation hubs.

Ahhhh...so many great suggestions and options. Yes, we will definitely rent a car for part of the time. I wasn't aware that was an option in some of the smaller towns though. I thought we would have to rent in a town at least as big as Avignon. Keep your thoughts and opinions coming. They are most welcomed!

You can get to Barcelona easily enough from the Rhone by high speed train, but not anywhere in Italy--except maybe from Lyon if the tracks are routed via Alps tunnels--but I didn't check the route. You'd have to fly or spend many, many hours by train from Avignon, Aix, Nice.

Cathy: Rent the car at the TGV station in Avignon. Drive the car to a smaller town.

There may be rental options in Arles and Nimes too, but wherever you get the car does not determine where you stay. It's a car! You drive it where you like.

By the way: Should you chose to do so, there should never be a drop-off fee for returning a rented car to another city within France. There are pretty stiff drop-off fees for returning a car to an agency in a different country. Rules about leasing might be different.