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Please suggest a good base around Avignon

Posted by (Florida, USA) on

For my trip mid-Sept to early October.

The area I'm looking at: draw a line starting at Uzes, south to Nimes, east to Arles, then north to St. Remy, Avignon and Orange. I'll come from north of there, spend most of a day in and around Pont d'Arc, then want to check in, get my bearings and find dinner with a view or people watching.

Ideally I'm looking for a decent place to spend evenings having a relaxing dinner (not late nights) with easy drives to all the places mentioned, some history with only manageable crowds and traffic.

Also, please recommend any sights you loved in the area (Pont du Gard is already on the list).

For those who read my bigger topic on a southeast loop, it's now looking like I'll spend three or four nights here, then four or five nights in the Riviera area (possibly four in Riviera and two on Corsica). That will put me at up to 13 nights on the loop and at least five nights in Paris.

I'd drop my car soon after getting to the Riviera (maybe drive up hill one day) and use the local train to get around until I fly back to Paris from Nice.

Thanks,

Brad

Posted by
3941 posts

When we wanted to explore Provence, we stayed at an airbnb in Salon de Provence. It's equidistant between Aix and Arles, south of Avignon and St Remy. We were also there in early Oct.

Uh, I really can't say much about the town because we spent so much time exploring all the surrounding areas! The downtown area looked interesting, but we never did have time to check it out.

Sights/places we enjoyed...Rousillon was a fav, Les Baux and we stopped for partial days in Aix, Arles, Nimes...went to St Remy, but there was some road work going on and our GPS kept trying to send us down wrong way streets so we ended up leaving...lol...my husband was like...enough! On the way to Les Baux, we also stopped at the Roman ruins at Glanum, which wasn't very far away and took maybe 30-40 min to walk thru.

Posted by
4517 posts

I'd spend 5 nights here then 2-3 in the Riveria. Anyway stayed at L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue which worked well for everything but Nimes which was about 2 hour drive. Avignon is a big city with icky traffic and no bypass so choose a place where you don't have to drive there or through there much. Generally this is a busy, populated area and slow going, and the autoroutes don't really help much.

You would need 7 days to see what you want in western Provence, BTW. 3 nights would just be frustrating.

Posted by
254 posts

We stayed in Uzes, at the Hotel Entraigues ( http://www.hotel-entraigues.com) in UZES and found it to be a great base. Uzes is one of best preserved and meticulously renovated towns in the South of France, 25 miles west of Avignon near Pont du Gard , with a Saturday market, medieval garden, hiking trails (my husband enjoyed the Les Sources d'Eure/Vallee D'eure trail which is is the source of the water for the aqueduct), central square and access in/out without any trouble. If you are a foodie, there are some wonderful restaurants in the area - the Red Tractor is not to be missed, as well as wineries which welcome visitors.The hotel has a good restaurant, helpful English-speaking owner, small pool, great rooftop bar - and parking.

From Uzes, we were able to visit Pont du Gard (loved it - wonderful museum and views), Avignon (which we found too crowded, hard to park - not really with the effort), Villeneuve de Avignon (charming, great gardens, abbey and fort st andre), St Quentin la Poterie (for ceramics )with lots of interesting factory outlets, La Cocaliere (between St-Ambroix and St-Paul-le-Jeune) where there is a fascinating cave systems iwith spectacular rock formations and evidence of prehistoric habitation.

No, it's not on the 'tourist' route - but it has everything you might want and more.

Posted by
782 posts

I stayed in Arles in late April and that gives you easy access to Les Baux and St Remy,it is about 45 minutes to Nimes and Pont du Gard and 1 hour to Gordes,Roussillon and Loumarin and we thought it worked well and loved Arles and went to The Camargue.
Mike

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