Brainstorming for Provence in April or May - itinerary and timing opinions and/or guide recs?

Hi Bradamant:

Airport: Flying in or out of Marseille is a good idea. It is a fairly small easy to navigate airport with very easy transportation to town. There is a frequent bus right behind the main train station. I found Marseille very interesting for a full day and wouldn’t have minded a little more time there.

Provence without a car: With careful planning and consulting local tourist information offices on bus schedules, I found it pretty easy to travel to Avignon, Arles, Nimes, Pont-du-Gard, Uzes, Marseille. I had looked into and with more time, I feel I could have easily visited St. Remy, Orange, L’Isle sur la Sorgue. There is a bus to Les Baux but it only runs in summer and I was there in October. I stayed in Arles and Uzes. Initially, I had thought about Vaison-la-Romain but was advised by folks here that it would be a difficult base without a car. For the Luberon villages, I used a small group van day tour from Avignon with A La Francaise. Here is a link to my trip report in case it is useful.

Trying to speak French: It sounds like your French is far better than mine. However, I did have some successful opportunities when I was able to explain, in French, that I do know some French and would like to try to converse but my pronunciation is very poor; this led to a few successful conversations. My B&B host in Arles was very willing to try. The guide on my Luberon van tour (a tour in English) asked if any of us spoke any French and wanted to try speaking French. I was the only one of the 5 of us with any French and I was too self-conscious to take the opportunity. I suspect that other group tour leaders might be happy to speak French with you.

Planning resources: In addition to the guidebooks you mention, I also used the Rough Guide book on the Riviera and Provance (my trip covered both regions). I found a ton of helpful trip reports and other posts on this forum. With some searching, I was able to find online bus schedules to see what was feasible but also found that exact schedules might vary.

Avignon is not my favorite town in France (I would, and have, chosen Arles or Saint-Remy, but that's with a rental car and another person with me), but I understand your desire to stay in a place with bus / train options. Perhaps, for some destinations, you could rent a car for one day, to reach some of your desired locations that are better reached by car. I do feel like navigating in this part of Provence is a bit easier than some other areas; many smaller roads where you could easily pull over if you felt lost (I'm assuming you would be using GPS).

Yes, Carcassonne is a lovely sight (though not period-authentic, just sayin'), but better as part of a different trip. Marseilles seems like a good choice for you.

Re working on French, my French quite bad but I apparently have a good accent, so people seem to be very happy to speak to me in French, so give it a try! (I usually have to soon revert to asking them to speak in English, or truthfully say in French that my husband doesn't speak French, so the conversation continues in English.) In terms of guides, I have had very good experiences with guides that I locate and hire through ToursbyLocals. I can look at their experience and background before choosing, and send questions in advance; before hiring, you could query whether the guide would be willing to speak French with you.

If you won't be renting a car (which will make getting around outside major cities more difficult), you can take a look at the public transport network maps for the regions you want to visit before planning trips that would be impossible without a car.

The area east of Avignon is part of the Zou! regional network, which covers the entire Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (PACA) region.

See below:

https://storage.googleapis.com/is-wp-22-prod/uploads-prod/2025/12/CARTE-SCHEMATIQUE-13-84_01-2026.pdf

Bus timetables:

https://zou.maregionsud.fr/trouver-ma-ligne-de-bus/

Arles, Alès, and the Pont du Gard are in the Gard department, west of Avignon, which is part of the Occitanie region, served by another regional network: liO.

See below:

https://storage.googleapis.com/is-wp-90-prod/uploads-prod/2025/11/Plan_reseau_departementalises_Gard_web.pdf

Bus timetables (valid until August 31) 2026)

https://www.lio-occitanie.fr/horaires-et-plans/

You might notice that the French spoken in the south of France isn't quite the same as the French spoken in Paris and is more "singing," but you should be able to manage by sticking to basic vocabulary. However, if you speak French with a southern accent, it will be fantastic. :)

Thank you! CD in DC, your trip report is particularly informative given that you visited many of the same places and in a similar "not totally dead of winter but not high season" kind of timeframe. The tour company you found looks good, too, although it might be harder to access if I end up not consistently staying in Avignon?

Lexma and CD are both making me rethink the plan of using Avignon as homebase. The hotel I scoped out is in fact exactly by the TI there as CD's acquaintance mentioned. I've always lived in big US cities, so I imagine myself to be generally confident and street-smart... but was also recently the victim of a crime for the first time ever and am probably more jumpy than usual. Perhaps I would not enjoy a grittier experience right now. I was thinking of the hub concept so as not to be dragging luggage around, but my last 3 trips combined tourism with sports so I had a lot of extra gear. I don't need to picture having that much stuff because I could pack more judiciously for this. Maybe I could do 2 nights in Arles, 2 in Nîmes, etc. If I leave off the Carcasonne side quest, this would be manageable.

And thanks to JoLui for the maps, which should be very helpful to visualize this alternative!

Re: speaking French, I'm afraid like every language I've studied, I'm uneven. For me reading is better than > listening > writing > speaking. I did the whole audioguide at Chartres in French as one example, and I can watch fast-talking shows like Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent on Netflix) with the captions on. I'd probably be better at listening to a tour than asking questions! But trying would be a nice part of the experience for me.

I am seriously looking at the Provence tour with France of the Beaten Path. Owned and run by an American expat.
It’s 6 days and 5 nights. Staying at a hotel in Saint Remy de Provence, you get the opportunity to walk to villages. It’s a luxury vacation, with many extras. I will probably go this fall or fall 2027.

Thanks, Susie! That looks good. I'm pretty committed to trying to do this one on my own, because I'm also planning a fall trip with friends that will be a more expensive guided thing. If that doesn't work out, I agree that this is a region that would work really well for a guided tour.

I want to clarify a comment you picked up on in my trip report about a young woman I met who said she felt unsafe at night in Avignon. I only heard this second hand from one person. I remembered it because I was surprised. The area in question, near the Tourist Information office, did not seem at all gritty to me. The other 3 people on my day tour were also staying in that area on a RS My Way tour and they did not agree or disagree with her comment. I loved staying in Arles and was glad I chose it over Avignon but it was not a safety/comfort issue for me. I found commuting from Arles to Avignon for a day trip tour in the Luberon very easy, though I could see that doing it repeatedly might get old.