Bonjour! From what I've read, driving in Nice, Aix-En-Provence, Marseilles etc can be a headache (not nice on a holiday) but using the bus system can limit you on where you can go.. has anyone used the bus system to get around Provence and is it good enough to get to most places?
Thank You
Joanne
The cities you named are all in Provence, but , to me, the real Provence lies in the villages of the Luberon, Cotes de Rhone, and the Var. We stayed in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue and drove around to all the small villages, then we drove to Cotignac and drove around from there. Driving was quite easy with a GPS. We were there in the Fall. You do not say when you are going , but summer has more traffic. There was no one on the beautiful roads in October and November. If you want to only go to the big cities you can go by train , also, but you miss the heart of the area. We are photographers and wanted to photograph the vineyards and the countryside. We drove down from Paris and stopped in Burgundy which is lovely in the Fall,also.
The answer, as it is to so many questions in life, is, "It depends." You can get along fine without a car in Provence if you plan to stick to cities. In fact, a car is an expensive hassle there--not just driving but parking. But the charm of Provence, in my opinion, is in the villages and countryside. For that, you will need a car.
Has your reading included Rick Steves' Provence & the French Riviera guidebook? The book gives a good breakdown of which villages are accessible by bus and/or train and which ones are really only accessible by car.
I echo the comment about the Rick Steves Provence and the French Riviera book--it is very, very helpful. I just got back from a week in France (3 days in Avignon, 3 days in Nice) and got around fine with minibus tours, the train, and buses (the buses around Nice are amazing!).
Hi Joanne, we had a car in provence and we really enjoy driving through the villages and countryside. We had no problem driving and parking in Aix and Marseilles and that was is the early summer. In the Côte d'Azur, we would leave our car at the apartment and would use the train or bus to go to Nice or Cannes, but we we're happy to have it to go to villages like Biot or Grasse. Driving in France was pretty easy, we really appreciated the car because it gave us some freedom.
One more piece of advice to definitely use the RS guidebook for that region- it was very helpful when I planned my own car-less itinerary last summer in that area. Around Nice the bus/train was definitely easy and his book describes how to do so- with the caveat to carefully watch for museum closings and being aware that on weekends (especialy Sunday) and holidays public transportation is very limited sometimes. I took the train/bus to Aix and Marseilles. As already noted, if you are interested in seeing the cities primarily that would be fine. I used a tour company to go for a full day to the lavender fields around Sault. If you are traveling off- season, the driving was not at all difficult outside the cities- a consideration if you want to explore on your own in the charming small villages.
