Our week in Provence was in three parts – Avignon, Aix en Provence and Arles.
We flew out of Stansted. Ryanair took off 45 mins late which meant our arrival in Marseille gave us only 15 minutes to get from airport to station. For the first time ever, I used Uber and the driver managed to save the day, delivering us to the station with 2 minutes to spare.
Avignon
Two nights but only one full day here so we had to make the most of the town. Our hotel was close to the station and just outside the town wall.
A walled town is great to explore because you can never get lost once you are inside the walls. We visited many of points of interest including the Papal Palace and of course the bridge (sur le Pont D’Avignon). The area was under a flood threat and it wasn’t possible to walk on the bridge but I don’t think we missed much.
Aix en Provence
We caught an early morning train via Marseille to Aix en Provence. It was straightforward to call an Uber to take us to our hotel on the edge of the city. I’d never used Uber before and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was.
After checking into our hotel we met up with Clive and Tricia. We walked through the Saturday market before heading up to a location used by Cezanne. I managed to capture a similar view to Cezanne’s over 100 years later.
We arranged a rental car through our travel agent on the understanding we could collect it in the afternoon. When we arrived we were told the car had been hired out because we didn’t collect it by midday. We were given no alternative but a much bigger car at a cost of 100 euros more. We weren’t given a handover and simply told the car was two streets away. Appalling service from Europcar and my review reflected it.
We did park the car in an underground car park in the city centre one night only to find we couldn’t get it out because of it’s size and poor turning circle. I had to reverse it into a space at the bottom of the ramp and then get out. It was very, very close.
On our first night in Aix, Clive and Tricia took Helène and I out for dinner for my birthday (75th in case you were wondering)
It was a great meal with an excellent maitre d’.
On day two in Aix we collected Clive & Tricia from their hotel and headed up to the Luberon Valley.
Cute village after cute village and the views kept coming. Sometimes it’s worthwhile to stop taking photos and just appreciate the sunshine and atmosphere.
Arles
The following day we drove to Arles. The hotel wasn’t in the best of locations and unfortunately didn’t meet our expectations. The room was hot and infested with mosquitoes. In the first 5 minutes I’d used a hand towel to kill 20 and the towel was blood stained. It seems the air conditioning had been turned off because it was out of season. The mosquito situation wasn’t helped by the fact the swimming pool was partially drained with green algae on the surface.
Arles is a beautiful town with a lot to offer. Roman mosaics in the museum; attractive outdoor nightlife; an amphitheatre; roman theatre and of course Van Gogh.
From Arles we drove to Pont du Gard and Nimes
The Pont du Gard has been on my bucket list for many years. To be able to spend a couple of hours walking around it, along it and looking down upon it was wonderful. The weather was marvelous.
We drove on to Nimes (let’s forget the drive in and problematic parking). We walked down from Tour Magne through the water gardens into the city.
As you can see from this photo of Helène in front of the amphitheatre Nimes was not overrun with tourists.
We sat in a square behind the roman temple soaking up the sun and enjoying a pot of tea.
On our way back to Aix for our final day we stopped near to St Remy to visit the Roman city of Glanum and Saint-Paul Asylum where Van Gogh lived up to the point of his death.
On our final day we dropped the car off without any additional scratches, visited a couple of places of interest (museums and churches) before walking back to the hotel then catching an Uber to the station. We had to change once to get to the airport but everything went smoothly.
We arrived back at Stansted early. By the time we left the airport, charged the car on the way to our stopover hotel in Kettering, taken a detour because the A14 was closed it was 11.30pm. Over all it was a great holiday – we saw everything we wanted to see and more.
