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Provence for 5 nights in July

Posted by (Windsor, ON, Canada) on

My wife, 5 year old son, and I will be staying in Provence next July. We are spending 5 nights in the region. Our first day is limited as we are taking the TGV from Paris to Avignon. We plan on renting a car in Avignon before heading to our home base for our 5 nights.

Places we want to visit are:
-Luberon Region (Isle sur la Sorgue, Senanque Abbey, Gordes, Roussillon, Bonnieux, Lacoste and Oppede le Vieux)
-Cotes du Rhone (Seguret, Vaison la Romaine, Crestet, Suzette and Gigondas)
-Arles or Nimes (We are leaning towards Nimes)
-St Remy de Provence
-Aix en Provence

We don't plan to stop and explore every town above. Some will be quick stops for photos, while others we plan to spend a few hours in. We are thinking of a full day in the Luberon region, a full day exploring the Cotes du Rhone, a day exploring both Nimes and St Remy de Provence and another day exploring Aix en Provence.

We were thinking of staying in Isle sur la Sorgue. We contemplated staying in Aix en Provence, Arles, St Remy de Provence and now Isle sur la Sorgue. We want to stay in a location that is central to the areas we plan to visit. We are looking for a home base that is family friendly. We definitely want home base to be somewhere that feels like you are in Provence.

Would Isle sur la Sorgue be the best fit for our needs? Would you recommend somewhere else? Is our itinerary managable?

Thanks for your feedback.

Posted by
2707 posts

That is a very ambitious list of stops, even if some are just for a picture. You won't enjoy the flavor of Provence as you will be seeing most of it from a moving car, with a now cranky 5 year old to boot. Get out a map, figure out what area of Provence interests you and pick a base. We stayed in Lourmarin (in the Luberon) in a VRBO a few years ago taking day trips to surrounding towns, several of which you mentioned (you missed Cuceron which we liked). We visited Isle on Sunday which is market day-pandemonium. I know some suggest it as a base, and I'm sure without the crowds it's charming. But Lourmarin was it for us- flat, small cobblestone streets, cafe's, a few decent restaurants (and a mini-golf course that had a pretty decent restaurant at the time). We did one longer (traffic and got lost) day trip to Aix where we met up with a guide recommended in Rick's book. This was market day and it was a great tour. But we enjoyed the smaller towns more, seeing the lavender fields, hiking up to old ruins. Trim your list and you will all have a better time.

Posted by
5226 posts

Ryan,

I agree with Alan, you have too many destinations for your short stay of 4 days.

My daughter & I spent 7 nights in Provence & we split our stay between L'Isle sur la Sorgue & Avignon.
We didn't have a car, so only took a day trip from Avignon and visited St. Remy & Les Baux.
We enjoyed our time in L'Isle sur la Sorgue. There are cute shops, good restaurants & delicious ice cream.
It wasn't crowded when we were there in June. We attended the Thursday market
& also some antique shops. One afternoon, we took a bus to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.
If we'd have had a car, I would have liked to have visited Gordes & Roussillon, as well as Lourmarin.

We'd planned to visit Pont du Gard & Uzès, as a day trip from Avignon, but we opted to stay & enjoy Avignon instead.

There are so many beautiful villages in Provence & we'll just have to return to see more on our next trip.

Enjoy the beauty of Provence!

Posted by
118 posts

Thanks for your feedback.

Being rushed is what we were concerned with. We are going to scale back and spend more time in the Luberon region. We're thinking of skipping the Cotes du Rhone all together. We'll do a single day trip to Nimes and skip Arles and St Remy. We had planned to go to the Riviera for 3 nights after Provence, but now we're thinking of staying in Cassis instead. This way we get 8 nights in Provence...5 in Isle sur la Sorgue and 3 in Cassis. We could always do a day trip to Aix en Provence while staying in Cassis.

If there is something better you can recommend we would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

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