Where to stay in provence

Let the forum know if you will have access to a car.

Sort of an open ended question. How long are you staying, what do you like to do, will you have a car? Provence is big. You don't stay "near" it, you stay in it. Gordes is in an area of Provence known as the Luberon and is a delightful town. As far as places to stay you could do a lot worse. There are hotels, B&B's, rentals. It is near many other small towns and villages. We stayed in one of those towns, Lourmarin, in an flat we rented through VRBO, for a week visiting many places including Gordes, which we found charming. If you want to see Gordes (and many other places nearby) in a very fun way get the movie, A Good Year with Russell Crowe. We visited nearly every place it was filmed including the chateau and winery. Provence is a great place to eat, stroll, hike, shop markets...unless the Mistral is blowing.

I am not familiar with Gordes, but you would definitely need a car here.
Arles is central with quick easy access by train to Avignon, Nimes, Aix-en-Provence, Marseille.
You also have regular summer buses to nearby St Remy and Les Baux.

We will have a car. We will be there for four days and plan to visit the luberon region, aix en Provence and cassis

I've been planning my own trip to Provence this spring, so I appreciate your dilemma. If it's any help at all, I elected for a week's rental in a village just outside of Avignon. (Villeneuve les Avignon) I'll have a car, so day trips to the Luberon, Vaucluse, & just about anywhere in western Provence is only about an hour or less of driving time away. Aix, Arles, & Orange are well inside that circle & even a jaunt down to St Tropez shouldn't be too much more than an hour. It's also convenient to the A6, so easy for me to arrive from Paris (& return). Not sure if it applies to your trip, but that's been my thinking.

Note the local TER train service from Marseille to Avignon that passes through L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.
http://www.beyond.fr/map/ter_paca.html
Utilising the train to Avignon, Nimes, Arles will save you lots of parking hassles.
Gordes and Roussillon are within close driving distance.

We stayed in L'Isle sur la Sorgue and thought it wound up being the perfect solution, as it's centrally located between the Luberon hill towns and the older Roman towns. It's also big enough to have shops/restaurants (wonderful Sunday market), but not so big that it's congested to get in/out of (as we ran into when visiting Arles and Avignon). We also rented an Airbnb right near the stream that runs through the town. We were able to day trip to Gordes, Roussillion, Les Baux, Arles, Avignon, Pont du Gard, Chateauneuf du Pape, Uses, and Cassis (we had six nights in the area).

I stayed at this hotel in Roussillon and really loved it - La Maison des Ocres, formerly called hotel Reves d'Ocres. I spent 5 days driving around the region from there, but did not go as far south as Cassis, so maybe Arles or Aix en Provence may be a bit more central. I also spent one night in Avignon where I rented the car, but I preferred to base myself in a small town.

We stayed in the small village of Malbec in the Luberon. It was maybe 30 minutes from Gordes and we found it a good base for visiting everything from Cassis to La Camargue. So, I think just about any location in the vicinity of Gordes would work.

Gordes is a must see, but not a must stay. By the way, it is featured in a Russell Crowe movie called A Good Year which came out a few months after we visited there.

We rented a two bedroom two bath farmhouse for six nights in St. Remy de Provence, which is 15 miles south of Avignon and is centrally located to most of the places you will want to see in Provence. If you're arriving by train there from Paris or Nice you will find that the TGY station is on the outskirts of town, while the rest of the trains arrive and depart the central station in the city. You can take a taxi or bus into Avignon, but you do not need a car there to see the sights. We spent the first night at a small B&B downtown and walked everywhere the next day.

Driving in France is very easy and we rented a car at the train station in Avignon. Most of the big names are there including Hertz, Avis and Dollar, so you can book before you to get a good rate.. After visiting Avignon we went back to the TGV station to get our car and our first stop was the Pont du Gard and then to St. Remy. All you really need to get around Provence in a car is your RS guide book and a good map (bought our Michelin map on this site). Our week there included day trips to Gordes, Orange, Isle-sur-La-Surge, Aix en Provence, Nimes and Cassis on the Mediterranean (take a boat to the Calanques), to name a few. Did not make it to Arles and plan to repeat this in September and include Arles. The farmhouse where we stayed is part of a very nice B&B called Mas de La Croix d'Arles and the owners are Jordane and Raphael Marsott. You can find out all about them on their Facebook page under the same name or at www.masdelacroixdarles.com. St. Remy is a delightful town which deserves a day in your schedule and it has some very good restaurants. FYI, ,mid-September in the Festival of the Bulls in St. Remy. Regardless of where you stay you will thoroughly enjoy Provence. We still exchange Christmas cards with them. so if you talk with them please tell Jordane I recommended you.

Jim

I highly recommend the RS-recommended B&B Le Mas Perreal (http://www.masperreal.com/). It's a little farther east (about 25 minutes from Gordes) right outside the hilltop village of St. Saturnin les Apt, but an easy and beautiful drive to Gordes, Roussillon, and Sault. Helpful and thoughtful hosts, lovely property, very easy to get in and out of. Definitely somewhere we want to come back to!