Day Trips from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Me looking out over the landscape from the ruins of the château above les Baux de Provence, France. July 20, 2025.
I love Provence. Truly love it. I’ll visit it with the smallest of reasons and stay as long as I can.
On my stays in the area, I’ve most often found a base of stay in either Aix-en-Provence or Avignon, mainly because I can access both medium-sized cities by train and can explore many places in the region from there without a car.
However, on a recent Provence trip, we knew we’d rent a car to accommodate some of the people in our group, so I figured we might as well try staying in one of the other towns in Provence. The area has several renowned villages that don’t have easy train access; this felt like the perfect opportunity to see what they had to offer.
Note: If you’re considering Saint-Rémy-de-Provence as a base of stay but don’t know what to expect when it comes to driving in France, I hear you. I’ve written up a guide for tourists driving in France.
We chose Saint-Rémy-de-Provence without ever having visited the town, which made it a bit of a risk. The hotel we found looked perfect for our four-person group of travelers, though, and everything I could find about the town made it sound absolutely lovely. It helped that we could easily reach the areas we wanted to visit with our guests.
As it turned out, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence would have bested even high expectations. The town itself doesn’t have much by way of sites to see, but it’s beautiful and has everything you could possibly need in a base of stay. (For my base-of-stay criteria, read my post about how I plan my travel.)
From Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, we ventured out every day to a different part of Provence, making day trips out of each of the following sites and locales. (We checked out a few other villages as well, but I’ll give you only my favorites!)
Baux de Provence
Right next to Saint-Rémy, a drive that will take you only about 20-30 minutes from town, is a town high up on a steep hill called Baux de Provence or les Baux.
Though the still-living town closer to the valley is lovely for a visit, most people go to see the ruins of a castle built in the 10th century. The castle and its holdings were built into the cliffside, which means that they span several levels.
A view from the castle ruins high atop les Baux de Provence, France. July 20, 2025.
Due to the state of the ruins, visitors should wear sturdy shoes with a good grip and prepare to climb and descend repeatedly during the visit. Further, as the site does not benefit from any natural shade and doesn’t always have walls or alcoves available to protect you from the climate, wear sun protection and dress for the weather.
Honestly, if I’d have known what to expect, I probably wouldn’t have taken some of our group there during our visit. I would have dressed differently, too. (Sandals a definite no-go!)
A beautiful place to see with incredible panoramic views of the surrounding area, but I don’t know that it lived up to the rave reviews that preceded it.
Avignon
Anyone I’ve talked to about Avignon knows how much I love the city, one of my favorite—if not my favorite—city in France.
One vantage point on the massive Palais des Papes in Avignon, France. July 24, 2025.
From Saint-Rémy, you can reach Avignon in 40-45 minutes by car. Once you get there, you’ll find a wealth of sights to see (and food to eat) for a day trip. As I’ve written extensively about my Avignon experiences, I’ll link to those posts here so you can see what Avignon activities suit you and your group the best:
The absolute must-see, of course, is the Palais des Papes. If you don’t want to get there and find it fully booked, I highly recommend that you buy tickets in advance on-line.
Pont du Gard and Museum
On a previous visit to Provence where we had a base of stay in Aix-en-Provence, we visited the Pont du Gard and Avignon in the same day. Though you can definitely do so as well, I’d recommend splitting the two into separate day trips. There’s simply too much to see and experience in both places.
The Pont du Gard is a 45-minute drive from Saint- Rémy in the neighboring region of Languedoc-Roussillon. While you may think you don’t need a full day to see a waterline spanning a large river, I promise you’ll be surprised.
This bridge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and deservedly so. The Romans built it in the 1st century BCE, and while the Romans built quite a lot during that time period—and before and after it, too—I have rarely seen any Roman ruin this well preserved and this utterly immense. As far as historians can tell, it’s the highest Roman aqueduct ever built. Beyond just that, it’s an incredible feat of engineering.
A vantage point on the stunning Pont du Gard in France. July 25, 2025.
I highly recommend you reserve tickets for a guided tour of the aqueduct on the website linked above, and I highly recommend as well that you stop into the museum adjacent to the bridge, which does a very nice job of explaining the archaeology involved in piecing together its history and construction.
The on-site restaurants impressed me with their quality as well; I had booked one because I didn’t want to leave to find food elsewhere and come back and I was beyond surprised at the deliciousness of the dishes and the graciousness of the service. (Often, in tourist sites, you’re hard pressed to find either. But this is France, so that’s less often the case.)
Aix-en-Provence
While in Provence, you should absolutely visit Aix-en-Provence. I don’t know exactly why, but this is the town that looms largest in imaginations when people think of this French region.
Aix-en-Provence is a 1.25-hour drive from Saint-Rémy. A stretch further than Avignon and the Pont du Gard, sure, but well worth the trip.
We’ve visited Aix-en-Provence several times, as you can see from all the links below:
Museums in Provence: A Priority List (including several in Aix-en-Provence)
Food in Provence: Reviews (with several options in and near Aix-en-Provence)
Clicking through these posts will help you choose what to do while in town. You have more options than you could possibly cover in just one day!
Château la Coste
We first visited the Château la Coste without much idea of what to expect: A quick paragraph my spouse found in a book or magazine left in a vacation apartment we’d rented in the Luberon area didn’t prepare me at all for the utterly mouth-dropping setting and art on display.
In fact, on that first visit, I expected little more than a standard art museum, so I wore a dress and sandals. Not at all a good idea. When we went back, I had on solid shoes for hiking, clothes to accommodate the weather, and a completely different mindset about how to get the most out of the experience.
Because Château la Coste is truly an experience.
Louise Bougeoise’s “Crouching Spider” (2023) installed in a reflecting pond at the entrance to the Château la Coste in France. July 23, 2025.
On grounds still in operation as a vineyard, the current proprietor has commissioned world-famous architects to create a series of modern buildings and has invited premier artists from all over the world to craft sculpture to dot the property in interplay with the environment. The site also features temporary exhibits in different buildings across the property with world-renowned artists.
Honestly, my explanation does this astounding place no more service than the brief paragraph we saw in that magazine years ago.
When you go, plan to spend the full day. As the property is a 1.25-hour drive away from Saint-Rémy by car, you’ll want to leave early enough to have time to see a bit of the property, break for food on site in one of the several restaurants, and then return to walking around. (I can almost guarantee you that, even with a full day, you won’t see it all.)
You can get guided tours of portions of the property, but to see many of the site’s most impressive and thought-provoking installations, you will need to walk (or hike, depending on the terrain). The welcome center has maps and explanations of the art to help you navigate.
Though the area around Chateau la Coste is exclusively agricultural (as far as I can tell) and doesn’t have much by way of food to purchase, you can’t go wrong with any of the on-site restaurant options. (Yum.)
Marseille
Of all the day trips I’ve recommended in this post, Marseille is the farthest from Saint-Rémy, at 1.5 hours by car. However, if there’s a chance you might not get back to Provence, you really shouldn’t miss at least a day trip to one of France’s largest and most vibrant cities.
A day isn’t enough time to do Marseille justice, but it’s better than nothing!
For the highlights of what you can see in a day in Marseille, read through the subsection of my post about what to see on day trips from Aix-en-Provence.
I’d add, especially if you have members of your group who don’t relish hours of walking (especially when they involve hilly streets, some of them steep), taking the Petit Train that leaves from the Quai du Port in the famous Vieux Port neighborhood.
We absolutely loved this little train-esque trolly bus that drove us along the coastline and up to the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde and back down into town after our pause to see the views and the interior.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is a Perfect Base of Stay
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence gave us a perfect base of stay for a visit in Provence.
The town has all the amenities anyone could desire, from restaurants and cafes through to places to purchase food and drink for picnics in the rental space or out and about on a picnic—plus necessities like pharmacies. In addition, the size of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence means you can get into and out of it easily to explore the region; no need to meander through a medium or even large city to access the routes to and from town.
If a vacation to Provence is in your plans and you expect to have access to a car while there, I’d definitely recommend you consider Saint-Rémy-de-Provence as a place from which to explore.