Provence in 7 days

We found Aix-en-Provence to be extremely confusing to drive in; hope you are better at that sort of thing. The road signs were unclear to us, even though I speak rudimentary French. Aix itself is delightful.

The scenic village of Valbonne we found to be an excellent headquarters for touring Provence. We also stayed in Manosque a couple of nights, which was closer to the lavender fields, but I personally found that town to be unpleasant. Not sure exactly why, and I haven't had that reaction to any other place in France.

We combined Barcelona and Provence in 2019. It was a great and easy combination. Our trip was 5 nights Barcelona, 6 nights St-Rémy-de-Provence, 1 night Moustiers-Ste-Marie to see the Gorge du Verdon, and then 3 nights in Nice before flying home.

We took the train from Barcelona to Nimes, where we picked up our car. You could do that and use Nimes as a base for some of your visit. It's easy to pick up a car at the Nimes train station. Then you could move over to Aix-en-Provence for the rest of your trip. If you have a night for Moustiers-Ste-Marie near the gorge, it's a lovely village. If you are inteested, I can look up the name of our hotel.

The one sight missing from your plan that I would recommend is the Pont du Garde, which is easy to visit from Nimes.

There was a major festival when we were in France in June. Check on what's going on when you will be there. We weren't able to find parking at Gordes or tickets for the light show at Les Baux during the festival weekend. And we looked for parking for a long time.

Enjoy! it should be a great trip.

Renting a car in one country and dropping off in another will incur very high drop off fees

As to whether a rental in Spain can be taken across border to France-you’d have to check with the individual agencies
For most it’s not a problem

When you are looking for hotels in Aix, you should ask them about parking. If they have on-site parking, or nearby parking, then you don't need the car while sightseeing in Aix. Everything is within walking distance. Our oldest daughter lived in Aix for a couple of years; we walked everywhere. When she moved from Aix to another village, we would park in the public parking garage when we visited Aix. The garage is very close to the Old Town. We never had problems finding a parking space.

I agree with Barbara N that St. Remy de Provence is a great and convenient place to also stay in. It's a lovely village with lots of restaurants, cafes, shops, and a Wednesday market. The asylum where Van Gogh was a patient is in St. Remy, and the ruins of Glanum are there, too, just outside of the city center. From St. Remy you can visit Les Baux and Luberon villages.

Avignon is another convenient base with a train station but IMO it's not the most attractive city. I much prefer the charm of Aix and St. Remy.

I don't know if you will have the time, but Marseille is a very interesting city, too. The port is lovely; there are many museums, including the Civilisations Museum (MUCEM); and we love wandering around the Le Panier district with its very interesting and very quirky street art.

Hi OP,

By my count you have 7 days unless you arrive early on the 19th. In my view this is a very full itinerary with that much time. I say this because you have 9 things listed, many of which will occupy a full day unless you just do a fly by. The distances appear short on a map, but in reality, travel times in this region can be slow going. Parking can also be a bit time consuming (i.e. Les Baux). I will add that Pont du Gard is a worthy stop.

We hired a guide (Imagine Tours found in the RS guidebook) for the less accessible locations when we were there. In addition to knowing how to be efficient with the route planning, our guide had a special parking permit that made visiting multiple stops in a single day a bit easier. This would be a good option for combining places like lavender fields, Gordes, and Les Baux.

Regarding your other preferences, Arles, Nimes, Avignon, should all be relatively easy to reach by train if you don't want to drive everywhere. Just be sure note the difference between a TGV station vs. a city center station. A TGV stop will require a cab ride into town.

For the Calanques, you can hike, kayak, or tour by boat. If you want to enjoy the beaches on your own time, it's the first two, most likely from Cassis. If it's windy, which is often, kayaking won't be possible. This is an example of something that I'd recommend allocating a full day for.

My wife and I spent 15 nights in Provence last spring, using Aix, Arles and Saint-Remy as bases from which to explore. For your itinerary, I’d recommend staying three nights in Aix, and five in any one of Saint-Remy, Avignon or Arles, depending on your tastes. The three are all a short drive from one another, but have very different vibes. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed driving in Aix, but it wasn’t horrible, and once I realized there was no sense looking for free on-street parking and resigned to just heading to the Mignet parking garage, it made things a lot less stressful. The drive from Aix to Les Gorges du Verdon is a bit over two hours, but you pass through the Valensole area, so they combine for a nice full day trip. Les Calanques is another easy day trip from Aix on your own, or you can join one of many small group tours out of Aix or Marseille that go there. (There are direct buses pretty much every ten minutes from Aix to Marseille’s main train station, that take about 45 minutes.)

The other towns on your list are all easily visited from any of Nimes, Arles, Avignon or Saint-Remy, and you can two in a day without rushing. We liked Saint-Remy for its charm, as well as the ease of getting on the road to other places. However, if you want more nightlife, I’d suggest choosing one of the other three.

It’s certainly possible to rent a car in Barcelona and drive to France, but you’ll need to inform the provider of your intentions, and possibly pay a surcharge. A high speed train from Barcelona to Avignon would be more relaxing, and you can rent a car at the Avignon TGV station.

Hello Barbara N,
thank you very much for your attention.

Let's do exactly that, go from Barcelona to Nimes by train. We ended up reducing the Provence part to 7 days, looking like this:

Day 01 (Friday 20/06) - Go to Nimes, arrival 11:50am. (day to stay and explore Nimes)

Day 02 (21/06 Saturday) - Rent the Car in Nimes. Go to Pont Du Gard, Orange, sleep in the Luberon region (Gordes?)

Day 03 (22/06 Sunday) - Gordes/Roussillon/L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue

Day 04 (23/06 Monday) - Manosque/Lavender Fields of Valensole/Gorges du Verdun/ Moustiers-Ste-Marie.
I thought about staying in the village of Moustiers-Ste-Marie, but I saw some reports on Google of broken car windows due to theft in the parking lot. But due to logistics, it would be ideal to stay that night in the region, because I don't think it would be possible to do all of this and still return to the Luberon region on the same day.

Day 05 (24/06 Tuesday) - Aix-Provence/LeBaux/Carriere de Lumieres/ Accommodation in St. Remy.
I'm worried this day because of the Aix-Provence parking lot, because our luggage would be inside the car and I've also seen reports of theft and broken car windows in the Aix-Provence parking lots, including in the covered paid parking lot.

Day 06 (Wednesday 25/06) - St. Remy Market. Free Afternoon.

Day 07 (26/06 Thursday) - Go to Arles in the morning, leave the car in Nimes and take the train to Barcelona at 03:59pm.

We ended up taking the Calanques of Cassis and Avignon.
I also wanted to fit the Arles or Apt. markets on Saturday, but the logistics would be bad and we preferred to go to the St. Remy market on Wednesday.

What do you think of the script? any suggestions?

Thak You

Hello ottawanderer,
thank you very much for your attention.

We decided to take a train from Barcelona to Nimes.
I researched the Mignet car park in Aix, but I saw reports of thefts, broken windows of cars in the car park.
We found Arles to be an interesting place to stay, but there is this parking issue. In St. Remy it appears that some hotels have parking.

Thak You

obrigado PNW Patrick, kmkwoo, jphbucks, ChristineH

We changed our itinerary, I detailed above. If you can give suggestions I would appreciate it.

Thank you to everyone who answered my questions.