Provence (France)
Provence from Avignon is a base-and-spokes trip: a walled papal city on the Rhône, with Roman monuments, hill villages, vineyards and painters' landscapes within an hour.
This guide is written for November, the quiet month, and it says plainly what is open and what is not. The Palais des Papes and the Pont d'Avignon are open daily on winter hours, Châteauneuf-du-Pape's cellars are pouring, the Luberon villages of Gordes and Roussillon are at their emptiest and most atmospheric, and the Sunday antiques market at L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue runs all year. The Pont du Gard is open to walk, though its museum is shut for the winter; the Arles amphitheatre keeps short winter hours; and the lavender is a summer story, in bloom from late June to early August, not now. Aix-en-Provence is covered as a single destination, with a note on the restoration of Cézanne's studio. The guide then matches you to eight hotels in Avignon, Arles and Aix, because the real choice is which town to sleep in.
Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes)
The largest Gothic palace in Europe, built in the fourteenth century when popes ruled Christendom from Avignon. Its stone walls, vast halls and gardens are the anchor of any visit to the city, and in November the winter hours are short but the queues are gone.
Châteauneuf-du-Pape Wine Tasting Tour from Avignon
The village where the popes' summer wine was made is twenty minutes from Avignon, and an afternoon tour with a local guide is the easy way to taste it without driving. November is harvest-over quiet, which suits unhurried cellar visits.
Carrières des Lumières, Les Baux-de-Provence
A disused limestone quarry whose towering walls and floors become canvases for immersive projections of great art, with music. It is the best rainy-day and winter sight near Les Baux, open daily.
Pont Saint-Bénézet (Pont d'Avignon)
The broken medieval bridge of the famous song stops halfway across the Rhône. You can walk out along what remains of it, see the little chapel on its pier and look back at the papal palace.
Hand-picked: every experience here has strong traveler reviews and a verified booking link.
The largest Gothic palace in Europe, built in the fourteenth century when popes ruled Christendom from Avignon. Its stone walls, vast halls and gardens are the anchor of any visit to the city, and in November the winter hours are short but the queues are gone.
The broken medieval bridge of the famous song stops halfway across the Rhône. You can walk out along what remains of it, see the little chapel on its pier and look back at the papal palace.
The village where the popes' summer wine was made is twenty minutes from Avignon, and an afternoon tour with a local guide is the easy way to taste it without driving. November is harvest-over quiet, which suits unhurried cellar visits.
Gordes stacked up its hillside, and Roussillon glowing in its ochre cliffs, are the postcard faces of the Luberon. A small-group half-day tour from Avignon reaches both, and November has them nearly to yourself.
A three-tier Roman aqueduct bridge, nearly fifty metres high, standing across the Gardon river in a wooded gorge. The site is open to walk every day; the museum is closed for the winter.
Arles was a Roman provincial capital, and its amphitheatre, built around 90 AD for crowds of up to twenty thousand, still stands in the middle of town with its arcades intact. Winter hours are short, so plan the visit for midday.
Van Gogh painted around three hundred works in Arles in 1888 and 1889. The Fondation Vincent van Gogh, in a fifteenth-century mansion, shows his work beside contemporary art and is the best indoor stop on the Van Gogh trail.
A disused limestone quarry whose towering walls and floors become canvases for immersive projections of great art, with music. It is the best rainy-day and winter sight near Les Baux, open daily.
A canal-threaded town where the river Sorgue turns old waterwheels, and where Sunday brings the Provençal market and antiques dealers. It runs every Sunday of the year except two holidays.
Plane-lined Cours Mirabeau, fountains on every square and honey-coloured mansions: Aix is the elegant city of Provence, and its old town is free to wander all year.
A Celtic, Greek and Roman town excavated at the foot of the Alpilles, with a triumphal arch and a mausoleum standing at its gate. It is quiet, atmospheric and a good winter stop, since most of it is open air.
A first-century Roman theatre with its enormous stage wall still standing, plus a triumphal arch on the old road north. It is half an hour from Avignon and one of the best-preserved Roman theatres in Europe.
Hotels we would book ourselves, from splurges to good-value bases.
$$$$Old Town, beside the Palais des Papes
The splurge: a five-star private hotel at the foot of the Palais des Papes, with a gourmet restaurant, a bistro, a cooking school, a garden and a tea room. You step out of the door and into the old town.
Check rates →Boulevard des Lices, Old Town
A five-star MGallery hotel in a former seventeenth-century Carmelite convent on the Boulevard des Lices, with a spa, a garden pool, a gourmet restaurant and the amphitheatre about five minutes away on foot.
Check rates →Old Town, near the station and ramparts
A four-star hotel built around a seventeenth-century cloister near the station and the ramparts, with 80 rooms, a pool, a garden and a restaurant. The best mid-range base for Avignon, with parking.
Check rates →Near the Cours Mirabeau, Aix-en-Provence
A four-star boutique hotel on Avenue Victor Hugo with 55 Provençal-style rooms, a courtyard terrace under a century-old plane tree and the Cours Mirabeau a short stroll away.
Check rates →Old Town, near the station and ramparts
The budget pick: a small family-run three-star in an eighteenth-century building with 13 rooms, on a pedestrian street between the ramparts and the station.
Check rates →Place Crillon, western old town near the ramparts
A sixteenth-century mansion beside the ramparts on the Place Crillon, with a courtyard garden, antique-filled salons and a restaurant. It is the grand old address of Avignon, a few minutes from the Palais des Papes.
Check rates →Place du Forum, Arles old town
A famous Arles address on the Place du Forum, long loved by artists, photographers and bullfighting aficionados. Rooms are eclectic and full of character, and the Roman sights and Van Gogh's Arles are on the doorstep.
Check rates →Northern edge of Aix, a walk above the old town
A Provençal bastide with Italian-style gardens, a pool and a restaurant, set on a quiet street a short walk above the old town of Aix. It is the romantic, garden-and-pool choice among Aix hotels.
Check rates →A practical first visit to Provence based in Avignon: what is open in November, why the lavender is not, what to book ahead, how to get around, how many days to allow and where the headline sights fit.
Choose between Avignon, Arles and Aix-en-Provence as your Provence base, with eight hotels from a five-star townhouse beside the papal palace to a small family-run budget stay.
A three-day plan for Provence based in Avignon: the palace and old town on day one, the Luberon villages or the vineyards on day two, and Arles, Les Baux and the Roman sights on day three.
A guide to eating and drinking around Avignon: covered markets and Sunday stalls, the wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and the Luberon, classic Provençal dishes and how to eat well without overspending.
The best day trips from Avignon: the Luberon villages, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the Pont du Gard, Orange, Arles, Les Baux and Saint-Rémy, with travel times, how to get there and how to combine them.
When to go to Provence: lavender in summer, markets and mild weather in spring and autumn, quiet winter trips, the mistral wind and what is open in each season.
