Spending July 7 - 11 in Provence. Intended to stay in Avignon as a base, but there is a festival and limited rooms. Thought of Arles, but heard Mosquitos are horrible.
Is Nimes a good alternative? Any recommended lodging in Nimes?
Any other recommendations.? Thought of Aix en Provence as a base, but it seems a little remote from other Provence sights. Also intend to swing through Aix on the way to Nice.
Any suggestions on a good base for Provence is appreciated.
-Eric
Nimes is technically in Languedoc-Roussillon, not Provence. In my opinion it is as remote from most of the places you might choose to see as Aix would be. I found St. Remy to be a very central base. The town is large enough to have amenities, but not a city like Avignon. I stayed in Arles in late September one year and had no problems with mosquitos. Maybe they are a problem in July, but I've never heard that.
Will you have a car?
Thank you
Yes, will have a car.
-Eric
We stayed in Arles for 4 nights and I don't remember a problem with mosquitos. We did have a room with AC which was nice because it was quite warm when we were there. We were there in June.
St Remy makes a perfect base.... Beautiful centrally located to lots of villages and a great market...great ambience which I did not find in Nimes
I was in Arles on Saturday (Hotel du Forum) - saw no mosquitoes. St Remy was lovely but not the Hotel du Soleil.
I stayed in Tarascon last year during the week of July 4th last year (Tarascon is 20 minutes up-river from Arles) and got many mosquito bites. You can mitigate these issues by getting a room with AC. Given the options (do you have a car?) I would probably go with Arles.
-Matt
I've had mosquito trouble in Nice but not in Arles or in Nimes -- seems to be one of those ~your mileage may vary~ issues.
Nimes rubbed me the right way, even better than Arles or Avignon. Dinner spots were convivial, non-touristy, good for aficionados (and showing some interesting influences, since as mentioned above it is technically in the next province westward, so some ingredients are sourced not from the Cotes du Rhone alone but also from regions leaning Basque-ward or even Catalunyan)
One of the RS-recommended hotels in Nimes has a couple who manage the place who are as friendly as it's possible to be without actually being close friends -- I'm within the solo traveler profile so it was almost becoming a boundary issue for me when they wanted me to go out for dinner with them when business wasn't occupying their time, or wanted to share an after-hours microbrew beer when the lounge was already closed. Very, very sociable! OTOH, when they were busy, they were busy.
This is them: http://www.hoteldestuileries.com/#hotel-des-tuileries-nimes-france
Note also that the sightseeing in Nimes really brings together the entire regional history, both Roman and medieval.
We stayed in Salon de Provence last year - mostly because it was in the middle of everything - Nimes (~ 1 hr drive) and Arles (~ 30 min) to the west, Aix (~ 30 min) to the east, Avignon (~ 1 hr) to the north, Marseilles (~40 min) to the south (but we didn't go south)...and I found a really nice airbnb.
We also had a car. We stayed four nights and did day trips - we actually didn't explore Salon itself as there were too many other places we wanted to see...
Between Nimes and Arles - even tho we only visited both for 3-4 hrs, we liked Nimes better - hmmmm...smaller and more...character, I guess.
If you're already spending time in Provence, I'd give Aix a miss and just drive on to Nice.
Just spending night #4 in St. Remy in Provence. We rented a lovely room with a queen size bed and a loft, shower, private entrance, breakfast, and access to a pool on an exquisite estate for around $110/night. Airbnb.com. Look for the property owned by Nicholas and Christelle. This was our base for trips to Arles, Pont du Gard, Cote de Rhone, and Less Baux. It was wonderful!
Driving in and out of Nimes includes a lot of suburban round-abouts, traffic, and a lot of one-way city streets. (I also stayed at the Hotel Tuileries there and was perfectly happy with the hotel, plus it has a parking option.) I did not love Nimes as a home base for day-tripping to Avignon, although from Nimes to Pont du Gard is shorter. In that neighborhood, the smaller town of Uzes might be better for drivers, as is St. Remy.
As you head east toward the smaller villages of the Luberon, any of which can be a home base, suburbia thins out to actual rural farmland, so driving is more scenic and relaxed.
Uzes and St. Remy are good suggestions, especially if you have a car. The first time we visited Nimes we drove there, and it's not a very attractive drive and driving in the city is not particularly easy. We later spent a week there w/o a car.
I wouldn't necessarily bypass Avignon because of a celebration. We were there last year in the height of the theater week (didn't know it when we booked) and had gray time.
We were there last year in the height of the theater week (didn't know it when we booked) and had gray time.
A Freudian slip?
Cgichard may I ask why you don't recommend the Hotel du Soleil? Just curious as there are many good reviews and we were considering it for our stay in St Remy. Thanks
To Carian, re Hôtel du Soleil, St Rémy. I just found it rather soulless and impersonal. Long corridors and then outdoor gravel to cross to get to the breakfast room. Had to search for someone to book me in on arrival, and again on departure. The gravel all the way to the gate made dragging rolling baggage difficult, but no-one around to help. I was booked in there for 2 nights on a Macs Adventures self-guided walking holiday, and it was a let down after the more personal hotels on my similar InnTravel holiday that preceded it.
I found Marseille to be an excellent city from which to visit Provence. For train travel it was great. Also many excursions leave from there as well. The city is fantastic. I definitely can't wait to go back. Aix-en-Provence is charming, but Marseille has much more to do, Plus Cassis is nearby, Arles is an easy day trip---as is Aix-en-Provence.
Cgichard thanks for your reply - so hard to sort the good from the bad. We really want a warm, typically Provencal hotel and this sounds like its not it. A few of the reviews on tripadvisor specifically mentioned the reserved attitude of the staff, and not being around to check you in is not very welcoming! Back to the drawing board for St Remy. There are a couple of other options that look good so I'll investigate...
Carian: maybe look for a chambre d'hôte rather than a hotel, given that there's a good choice of places to eat in St Rémy. But I've only been there that once so I can't recommend any.
I'll do that, thanks. We're also considering staying in Isle sur la Sorgue so will look at options in both.
We were there during the theater festival this year on the RS My Way France tour and I wished we had been staying in Arles instead of Avignon. We did a trip by train to Arles to see the Van Gogh exhibit and really wanted more time there. I thought Arles was lovely and don't remember any mosquitoes.
Avignon was crowded and a huge mess of posters and cards advertising all the events going on. I cannot even describe what a mess it was. I said to my husband that I wondered what everything might look like without being covered in posters. When eating outside, we were continually interrupted by people handing us the cards advertising their plays. I suppose if you get into that kind of thing, it is an exciting time to be there but we had no idea this was happening and were completely unprepared for the crowds. We arrived within minutes of the beginning of the parade kicking off the event (in fact, we barely made it in before the street was closed) and we couldn't even walk down the sidewalk outside the hotel. It really left a bad taste for us and I thought it was poor planning by the tour coordinators - a rare mistake by the RS team.
Rule of thumb -- avoid towns during festivals. We were in Arles overnight during their annual bull running festival in September (we had no idea -- it was just a stop on a long drive from Perigord to Menton -- it was a complete nightmare. Cars were parked in every available spot; the streets were blocked off so we only managed to get to our hotel when two young women got in our car and guided us; we had to find our own parking as the hotel lot was full and it was at least a mile from the hotel and we only snagged the spot when someone pulled out as we drove up and down parked up crowded streets on the edge of town. No mosquitos though.
I'm trying to think if I've ever hit a festival that wasn't on purpose/unplanned. Don't think so, but our planned stay in Amsterdam next year was going to coincide with King's Day, and I really want to avoid as it doesn't seem to be my thing (I'm glad a poster on here pointed that out to me when I was planning my itin). So I am going to hopefully rework our visit. My only exception will be Venice at Carnival - that's still on my bucket list. I guess we did go to Munich one day for Oktoberfest, but it was near the start and a weekday, so we didn't really notice crazy crowds - and we planned to be there at that time.
