Home Base for Touring Provence Region

We were pleased with L'Isle sur la Sorgue as our base in 2016, but you have many attractive options. Our strategy was to identify the places we'd most like to visit in the region, then look for a central location with restaurants, its own charm, yet wasn't so large that we'd lose the feel of being in the countryside of Provence. (Here's the Sorgue page on a useful website on tourism in the region: http://www.provenceweb.fr/e/vaucluse/islesorg/islesorg.htm). Others will recommend the bigger cities for other good reasons. The RS book on Provence & the Riviera is a good starting place. My wife loved St. Remy in particular, and would probably lobby hard to make it the base if we return. Also, using the Search button and "Provence" here on the French Forum will lead you to tons of information on the region. Finally, if the highly entertaining Sunday market in Sorgue makes your short-list, you should consider staying in Sorgue so you avoid parking issues on Sunday morning. (Sorgue can appear large on the map, but the tourist sites are conveniently concentrated inside a sort of inner ring road that surrounds the famous waterwheels, restaurants, shops and hotels.)

Geographically, the best is a bit south of Avignon, let's around St-Remy de Provence.
This way you are central from the main sites, Nimes, Arles, les Baux de Provence, Aix en Provence, Gordes, Roussillon, Senanque Abbey, Orange, Mont Ventoux, Pont du Gard, Cassis in the south, etc.
This is in the region called Les Alpilles which sceneries are just wonderful.

you can't go wrong with L'Isle sur la Sorgue or St Remy, we stayed at St Remy and radiated out each day.
as mentioned , do a search ( in the tab at the top) as this topic has been covered many time before, with plenty of suggestions on things to see/do.

There's no perfect place and it really does come down to your priorities. St Remy is a good choice because it is centrally located (relative to the sites I wanted to visit in the east, west, north and south) and it is a nice place. I have put together a drive-time matrix that I used when I had to make this choice. I have a pdf version that I can send you via email if you are interested. I can't post here because we cannot attach files, so if you want it, please send me an instant message with your email address. In the end, we chose to stay in Tarascon because we wanted to be centrally located in a 2 bedroom self catered place with a pool and secure parking that was within our budget. If I had to do it again I probably would have gone with St Remy as it is near Tarascon and is more charming. Also, I found that the closer you get to the Rhone, the more mosquitoes you encounter. Many people on this board have not found this to be a problem but I was eaten alive during our week there. So.....since France does not use window screens, this is a good place to get air conditioning in your bedrooms. Provence, in general, is pricey relative to the rest of France. As a point of comparison, it took me about 30 minutes to find the places I wanted to stay in the Dordogne and the Alps, but Provence took me 2 weeks.

Thanks,

Matt

I've stayed in both Arles and St. Remy. I would probably opt for St. Remy over Arles. We were able to find parking easily and make day trips to other towns with no problem. We would return to St. Remy after sightseeing during the day and walk to dinner. No worries about how much wine was consumed that way! There was a nice variety of places to eat there and is a nice town to spend time in.

Thank you all for the insight!