Provence and Carcassonne in April 2026

Regarding the second part of your trip, St. Jean Pied-de-Port is a small village of barely 1,500 inhabitants in a rural area. You won't find any car rental agencies in or around this area to return a car picked up in Provence.

The only option I see is to return the car in Bayonne. There should be at least a Sixt and Avis at the train station (check the opening hours, they may be closed at lunchtime and on Sundays), and then take a TER train from Bayonne to St. Jean-Pied-de-Port; it's a one-hour train journey.

Between Provence and Bayonne, Carcassonne could indeed be a possible overnight stop, located roughly halfway. Toulouse could also be a good option for an overnight stay after a stop in Carcassonne, and you'll have to drive via Toulouse anyway.

Of course, it all depends on where in Provence you're starting from. Provence is vast, with Arles being the westernmost point.

Just in case:

https://www.toulouse-tourisme.com/en/

https://www.visitbayonne.com/en/

For your family I would recommend to stay in St Remy. You can easily access all of Provence and Luberon from there with a car. You will find many posts about it here on RS forum. I also recommend the blog and books by Keith Van Sickle about it, including his “secret” parking directions for the town. You can find with a web search. Enjoy the planning!

Also for Cote du Rhône if you are going for a wine tour I cannot recommend highly enough Olivier Hickman www.wine-uncovered.com. We had two tours with him in 2022 and will again this year. He tailors to your interests he is fun knowledgeable and great to spend the time with no matter what level of wine experience you have.

I just spent about 10 nights in Carcassonne last October. I was on a tour that used this for a base so I got to know it pretty well.

The tour stayed at the Ibis Styles Carcassone La Cité which is in a neighborhood about a 10 minute walk to The Cite. There is a big parking lot and it seemed to be an easy location to get in/out of. The rooms were clean but pretty plain but front desk and bar staff, all young and multi-lingual, were excellent. Wifi was good.

I ate at a number of restaurants in La Cité. The ones that stand out are L'Ostal, Maison du Cassoulet and Chez Christine.

L'Ostal - I ate here 3 times, hahaha and could have eaten here another time or two. Cute cave-like atmosphere and a wonderful singer/guitar player performing named Jericho. The servers were all enjoying his music as well as I could see them dancing at the back of the room. Our server said he was Gitane. He also was singing in English, French and Oc. Quite a fun and welcoming experience. The food was excellent. I see it only has 3.5 stars on googlemaps but I felt it was much better than that. They cooked some of the mains (steak, salmon and baked potatoes) on an open fireplace. The owner is Welsh, hahaha.

We did not have reservations at Maison du Cassoulet but got there before it opened. The person who was puttering around outside (setting out plants, etc) said we needed reservations so one of our group jumped online and booked. There was a rush when the doors opened, everyone was seated at once, service was fast and it felt a little like an American restaurant where they want to turn the tables ALTHOUGH our server never rushed us and our group of 5 was there after all the tables had turned. The food was very good. I had a salad with boiled shrimp and some salmon in it and I will tell you the shrimp were the best I have ever had. I used to live in FL. My fav restaurant where my parents lived was at the Mayport Docks so I have eaten some good shrimp. These were outstanding. BTW, I had been paying everything with ApplePay but had gotten cash out of an ATM earlier that day and got all 50E bills. I tried to pay my bill with the 50 and they did not have change. He literally reached above his head and pulled down a tips cup to root thru and see if he had change. I just paid with ApplePay to make it easier as they were very good about splitting the check among us.

Four of us got to Chez Christine when it opened. We followed in a large tour group of about 50 but were seated in a side room. Another smaller tour group of Asians came in after us. The Asian guide was complaining about everything...room too hot, opened doors herself, tried to adjust the AC herself, they brought in their own champagne. We could tell by the faces of the servers that they were not pleased. I think this affected our service to begin with but when they realized we were not complainers, understood they had a huge group to contend with plus a complainer they turned on the charm. The food here was quite good as well. Our guide, Mark, said this is his wife, Toni's favorite restaurant in Carcassonne so I expect with a reservation and not arriving with another group we would have had a better start.

We tried to eat at Le Patio which our guide Mark had recommended but it was closed every night we tried so we decided since it was the end of the season they had gone on a break.

We ate at L'escargot but I did not particularly enjoy it. The chairs were weird stools that were uncomfortable for our senior group. The service was uneven...it felt like the servers had never eaten in a restaurant so didn't get the rhythm of service. I don't even remember what I had but 2 people had some kind of skewered meat that was raw, tough and tasteless. The person who chose the restaurant enjoyed her dozen escargot.

This is probably more info than you need for a 1-night stay!

What to do after 8 pm? Enjoy your dinner! Many restaurants do no open until 7 pm.

Start thinking of your trip as being for five nights, if that's what it will, not five days - it will impact your planning.

I know there are walking/hiking opportunities in this area, especially throughout the Alpilles, but I haven't done that there, so can only point you to AllTrails, which I'm sure you're already looking at.

In terms of a base, we have stayed at both Arles and Saint-Remy (on different trips). Before deciding, check on lodging availability. We will be in the same area (again) in early May, and found that all of the places that we were considering staying at in Arles were already booked, so defaulted to Saint-Remy (though both villages are wonderful). Avignon is a ways away from the other places that you mentioned that your group is interested in, so may be a less desirable base. While it's worth visiting, and I know this isn't very helpful, I have not felt it was as interesting a place to stay in as Arles or Saint-Remy. Nimes, I like, as well, and the Roman amphitheatre is impressive, but it is also a little further away as a base.

Take a second look at whether you want to spend time and money on the Carrieres de Lumieres in Les Baux. My home city in the U.S. had a similar installation, and while it was worth my going to at home, when we were in the area where Van Gogh actually lived and painted, my choice was to visit those actual sites. I would recommend the Monastère St-Paul-de-Mausolée in particular (that's the asylum where Van Gogh spent a year recovering and painting). The cafe that he painted is still there, sort of. We chose to have our morning coffee at a different cafe. There are Roman ruins throughout the area, such as Glanum, if you're interested in that kind of thing. Very ruinous, but I think it's interesting. Also look up the Abbaye de Montmajour; we enjoyed our visit there very much.

Generally speaking, you don't have a huge amount of time for such an interesting part of France; you may want to focus on places that are close to wherever your base ends up being. If you visit Nimes, for example, that could easily take half a day (including having lunch there). You may decide to allocate your time to places that are closer, or decide that visiting the amphitheatre is how you want to spend your time - it's simply a matter of always having more to see or experience than time to do so.

In terms of "nightlife," except for Avignon, which is a larger place, the nightlife as I've seen it, after dinner, is bars / cafes where people gather with friends, and to have drinks.

Les Baux is very interesting; it tends to be pretty crowded during the day. The last time we went there, we went near the end of the day, and there were fewer people, and it was easier to find parking.

Congrats on doing the Camino! Last year I hiked one stage, between St. Jean Pied de Port and the village of Roncesvalles, and it was amazingly beautiful and very meaningful (I'm really into history, so going over the Pass of Roland was special to me). Bon Camino! You've already gotten the suggestion to drop your rental car in Bayonne; I'm pretty sure you'll have several choices of transport from Bayonne to St. Jean. That is also a lovely little city that doesn't get the attention that it deserves, if you have time to spend the night there.

Thank you so much, all, for the great information! We have six nights, five days, and I'm sure we'll wish it was more, but we'll do what we can. I appreciate the help!