On the last leg of our trip to France in October we’ll be leaving Lyon for a stay in St. Remy. My initial thought was taking a TGV to Avignon and then renting a car for our time in St. Remy. But now I’m wondering if maybe we should consider getting the car in Lyon and driving to St. Remy instead. Is there a particular route that would make sense where we could make some fun stops enroute? Or are we better off with the train option?
Posted by
Long Beach, Ca, usa
3513 posts
djridder,
The drive from Lyon to St, Remy de Provence is about 3 hours. About half hour off the route are Nimes (Roman ruins) and the nearby Pont de Gard, another half hour further. If you get a good start in the morning you will get to Nimes in about 3 hours. You can explore the old town center with the Roman arena, have lunch, spend another couple of hours going to and seeing the Pont de Gard. Then drive to St. Remy from there, about 2 hours on non autoroute roads. You could get to St. Remy by dinner time.
Or on the way, not too far off the autoroute, are Avignon, Orange (Rick's recommendation) or Vienne if they look better to you. The Michelin paper map #527 of Provence could be helpful in checking out the route to St. Remy, and also all the area you may wish to explore by car. We like seeing the big picture in planning our drives in the region. We then mark all our drives in marker on the map and we have a souvenier of our trip!
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
11982 posts
Definitely Vienne and Orange for their Roman ruins, and Avignon which are on the way to Saint Rémy. Judy's other suggestions are a good day trip further west from Saint Remy.
Posted by
1447 posts
In this case I think I’d drive. It’s not exactly saving you a ton of time or money to TGV since you’ll still need the car to get to St. Remy. I like the suggestion to stop in Orange for the Roman Theatre, also not bad for a lunch stop.
Posted by
Olympia, WA, USA
6804 posts
Might as well drive the A7 from Lyon unless the car costs much more from there than from Avignon. As noted above, Vienne and Orange are right along the way. Avignon itself is very worthwhile, either that day or another. I'd save Nimes and the Pont du Gard for a separate day trip.