This was a day trip we made by bus from Avignon on 5th June. In an ideal world this tour should be done by joining an organised tour or by car as buses are few and far between – and stuff we found on the internet wasn’t that encouraging. But we managed to find our way around the bus schedules and worked out that we could visit both places in a day. We would only have an hour or two at each place but these are only small villages and we figured that would be enough time – and so it was!

St Remy de Provence

St Remy is a typical Provencal village famous for its market, shopping (specially food), restaurants and art – this is another place, like Arles, with Van Gogh connections. We had contemplated staying here for a few nights when first building our itinerary but decided on Arles instead as we thought there would be more to see and do in Arles.

We visited on market day and probably saw the place at its lively best before we jumped on another bus to get to Les Beaux.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Les Beaux de Provence

This is a small picturesque medieval village set high on a fortified rocky site in the Alpilles mountains between Arles and St Remy – a  quite spectacular location. Whilst it’s small, there’s a lot of history with evidence of life going back to 6000BC and a turbulent military history through the middle ages.

This is a popular stop on the tourist trail and apparently gets absolutely hammered at peak times but thankfully it wasn’t too bad at the time of our visit and we enjoyed an hour or two wandering around the village.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived in Uzes from Nimes on 26th May 2017. There is no train station in Uzes and so we made the 25k journey from by bus for the princely sum of €1.30 each!

Uzes, like Nimes, is on the edge of the  Languedoc Rousillon Region of France bordering Provence and it’s another town we had never heard of before we built our itinerary for this trip. Indeed I’m not sure how we discovered the place but suspect we were just looking for a pretty village with a nice market to stay in en route to Provence. We saw it described as one of Languedoc’s prettiest villages along with Pezenas and as a “hidden gem”  having one of  the best markets in France. It’s a little bit off the main tourist trail and we though it would be a good taster of life in a  french rural town. The more we researched the more we liked the look of the place and then when we found La Tour des Reves, the apartment that we rented on line, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to book it.

This small town is the oldest Duchy in France and there is still a Duke living in a castle in town. Its history dates back to pre Roman times with settlers drawn by freshwater springs in the area – the remains of what was apparently a large Roman town have been discovered quite recently . The Romans used the springs as a source of water for Nimes building an aqueduct 50 kilometres to get water from Uzes to Nimes. The aqueduct included the Pont du Gard, the highest of all elevated Roman aqueducts and one of the best preserved as you wills from the photos below.

Our apartment was in the centre of the historical centre only metres from Place aux Herbes, a beautiful market square with a central fountain and lined with restaurants and shops. The apartment is a typical old building beautifully and stylishly updated and we even had our own tower on the roof where we could sit with a glass of wine.

The town centre is a maze of narrow streets with arcades terraces and squares, lots of places to explore in the town itself and some lovely walks in the neighbouring countryside. With a boulangeries on every corner, we were smitten!

We fell in love with Uzes. We stayed for a week but would happily return for a month or longer although it isn’t a cheap place to stay. The town is very well preserved and many of its properties are “high end”. It’s clear that a lot of money has been spent in the town on property renovation to some extent, apparently, as a result of government grants being paid in the past to rejuvenate the place. It seems there are a few American property owners, La Tour des Reves is itself American owned, but we didn’t think the town especially touristy maybe because it’s only small and is a little off the beaten track with many more famous towns and cities around it – Nimes, Montpellier, Aix-en-Provence and Avignon to name but a few.

The Apartment

 

 

 

 

 

 

Up on the roof

 

 

Around Town

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Market Day

 

 

 

The Eure Valley

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pont du Gard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nimes is a small city, the capital of the Gard Department within Languedoc Rousillon near to Provence. We arrived by train on May 23rd in glorious sunshine and were immediately impressed as we walked out of the train station onto the Avenue Feucheres, a paved promenade with running water  features, fountains and gardens leading to the Esplanade where a Roman Arena stands. Actually we discovered that Nimes has lots of tree-lined streets and squares with fountains and is a really nice place to visit.

Unlike Montpellier, Nimes does have a Roman history and has some of the best preserved roman architecture anywhere in the world. This includes the arena, the best one in France apparently, being an amphitheatre still in use today for bull fights and other live events and a Corinthian  temple, or at least its facade, which fronts a building used to house a tourist oriented film show and is known as Maison Caree. The latter stands facing an ultra modern  Gallery of Contemporary Art and Library built of steel, glass and concrete! There are various other Roman monuments around the town including the Tour Magne, a substantial tower that formed part of the ancient city’s defences and the remains of a temple in the excellent Jardine de la Fontaine which is a tad more modern but was constructed on top of Roman thermal baths and has a network of “canals”  with ornamental ponds and fountains with statues everywhere. The town is a great place for history buffs but you don’t need to be a history buff to enjoy it.

We stayed in a super rental apartment on the outskirts of town for three nights. We could have stayed longer although this is only a small city and  three days is probably just right for most people.

Quite apart from the historical interests, we enjoyed the central market as always and made the most of the excellent kitchen in the apartment to cook for ourselves – I’m afraid we still are not overly impressed with the standard of food we’ve had in most cafes and restaurants that we have tried and so self catering is our preference and of course, more wallet friendly!

Nimes was definitely another highlight of this trip so far and it remains the case that the more we travel east the more attractive southern France becomes!

 

Here are the photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jardins de la Fontaine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had been looking forward to visiting Montpellier having read a lot about the place in travel guides. We were not disappointed.

This might be the 8th largest city in France but its not that big and its not nearly so old as many without any Roman history. The historic centre goes back to medieval times with a cathedral built in the 1300’s but most of its buildings are from the 16th and 18th centuries and many are from the 19th century. It’s a university town with, according to wiki, almost a third of the population being students. Thus the town has a busy, youthful feel to it and when we visited there seemed to be plenty going on with various markets, art exhibitions and luckily for us, on one day we enjoyed a free concert. We liked it a lot.

There’s a very attractive historical centre with lots of narrow streets and squares filled with nice shopping, bars and restaurants with a main square, Place de Comedie, being the main focal point of the city centre providing a large and grand space with fountains and statues. With lots of activity in the square and plenty of pavement cafes, this is a great place for people watching.

Whilst we had booked an airbnb apartment for our four nights here, we ended up leaving the apartment after two nights when the owner asked us to leave after we had managed to lock ourselves out of the place! Thus we ended up staying in hotels for 2 nights rather than self-catering  but still enjoyed visiting the markets including the main central market, les Halles Castellane, with its fantastic selection of food and nice bars but especially the bi-weekly market, le Marche des Arceaux just outside the city centre under the arches of an old aqueduct, essentially a farmers market with all kinds of home grown, home made produce, bread, cheese, charcuterie and wines on offer.

We stayed only four nights in Montpellier but we thought it a great city to visit, very classy with a great vibe and some nice architecture, promenades and parks. The Promenade de Peyrou is especially grand with its own mini Arch de Triomphe, the  Porte de Peyrou, one of many landmark structures around the city.

Here are some photos, quite a few actually, beginning with the Place de Comedie

 

Promenade de Peyrou and the Porte de Peyrou

Markets

 

We arrived in Sete from Pezenas by train on 16th May 2017 for a three night stay. We arrived early afternoon and the Irish owner kindly picked us up at the station and delivered us to his bijou but pleasant apartment in an old but renovated building conveniently adjacent to the town’s Tourism Office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For us Sete was simply another stop over point en our route to Provence and then the Cote D’Azure. We had only 2 days here and wished we had longer but we enjoyed lovely weather walking up and around the Mont St Clair and some nice fishy meals. A highlight for us here as elsewhere in France was the fabulous market hall with its amazing fish and produce stalls and tapas bars and restaurants.

 

 

Some more photos of the town

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop Montpellier !