We have ten days to explore Provence in early June and realize we need a car, but wish to avoid city driving as much as possible. We wondered if anyone had any recommendations on specific places/business locations that are relatively easy to navigate? Our home base will be Aix, but driving through the city seems a bit overwhelming. Thanks in advance for any ideas.
Posted by
Gulf Coast, usa
1191 posts
Assuming you have recently looked at car rental prices, renting the car in Aix should not be a problem. Some of the smaller villages can be accessed by train, or bus. We just recently returned, and we decided not to get the car because of the high costs of having one. We didn't miss it, but I suppose if you really want to visit a lot of places, one would be necessary. Don't know about Aix, but Avignon we would have had no trouble driving in. The biggest issue may be where to park the car for 10-days in a larger city, and how much that is going to cost you. Does your hotel offer parking?
Posted by
Paris
7301 posts
You do not need a car the whole time; several day trips are easy by public transportation and "CaliMom" on this forum has recent experience with that (you can probably find her thread on Google, more easily than with this website's search function). At the very least, do not get a car if you are planning to visit Marseille, Avignon, or Aix itself.
And for those days when you do need a car, driving around Aix is not that bad, the most annoying factor being the one-way ring of boulevards around the city center. I would just rent in Aix (downtown Aix, not the TGV station).