Arles, Les Baux & Saint-remy De Provence From Aix

Very good experience.Trip was well organised,guide spoke very good English. He explained things in detail and answered all the queries.

Ben was a great driver and guide. There were 8 of us in small group tour. Started in Arles and Ben showed us highlights. Really nice Roman town where Van Gogh painted. Had time for coffee and walking around on our own. Had lunch in Les Baux, small medieval hill town. Found wonderful restaurant with great view. It is touristy, didn’t have time to go to castle. Ben gave option to visit quarry which one person went to and really enjoyed. Final stop was Saint Remy. Ben gave option to visit mausoleum where Van Gogh was put in. I went and really enjoyed seeing it and all the paintings he did in Saint Remy. It is a high end touristy town with shops and restaurants, not much to do. Only thing I didn’t like is they squeezed 8 people into van so someone had to sit in middle of front seat next to Ben. They should have max 7 in van. Highly recommend!

Spectacular scenery in Les Baux. Guide was an excellent driver who provided suggestions for walking itinerary at each spot. A map of Arles would have been helpful.

Very Good experiences with Donato.

Fabulous experience! Our guide was so knowledgeable and friendly. Les Baux is a must see! Arles and the market in St. Remy!

We spent two wonderful days touring Provence with Greg and he made the experience exceptional. His knowledge of the history, wine, and local culture added so much depth to every stop we made. He didn’t just show us Provence—he helped us understand and appreciate it. He was engaging, thoughtful, and clearly passionate about sharing the region he loves. We learned so much while also having a relaxed and enjoyable experience. I would highly recommend him to anyone visiting Provence and would happily tour with him again.”

Domaine Lumiere, St Remy, Provence, France Last year we sold our Spanish apartment after 20 great fun years, The trouble about owning a property abroad is that you have to look after it and you feel you have to be there at every available opportunity to make it worth the trouble. It was wonderful but it was time to move on. We wanted new adventures, to see and enjoy other countries and cultures and create new memories for the family. I found Oliver’s Travels by accident but soon discovered many of our friends used this high-end company that seems to go the extra mile to find us what we wanted. It was to be France first, Italy next year and after that, who knows – Croatia perhaps or Turkey, Our requirements were quite specific – plenty of room for seven adults and two children, at least four bedrooms with bathrooms, lots of space, swimming pool and private garden, a well-equipped kitchen and lovely outside dining. We wanted somewhere near a village or town as our youngest grand-daughter, aged 11, had already decided she would cycle with her father to the local boulangerie to buy fresh croissants for breakfast. We really didn’t mind where in Provence but picked Avignon as a starting point. Our assigned agent Francesco was more than helpful as we trawled through his selections of villas until I came across Domaine Lumiere. It seemed absolutely perfect. Fresh water pool, huge garden with tennis court and a couple of friendly cats, mature gardens, close to St Remy but tucked away down a country lane. It’s a lovely old village house that had clearly been well loved – bookcases lined with both English and French books, antiques, large comfy beds – it seemed to me more than a holiday let. I had decided to book early to make sure we got our first choice and it was a good decision. I booked in June 2025 and we went for a week in the half-term holiday week at the end of May 2026. Arrival time was 5pm but after chat with the lovely manager Sabrina, we were able to arrive late morning after our flight to Marseille, not always possible if the villa is booked the previous week but worth a try. The airport is a bit chaotic but it was easy to find our hire car (we chose OK Mobility). When we drove through the heavy iron gate and walked into the house, I was almost in tears with relief because it was so beautiful, even better than the pictures. We’ve taken holiday lets before but never one like this. It immediately felt like a home. High ceilings and lovely old French furniture, every window looked out on a pretty aspect. Whoever equipped the kitchen must have been a proper cook. It had everything including the best cooking knives, three different coffee machines and some beautiful porcelain cups and saucers as well as cupboards full of colourful dinner services and plenty of glasses. The fridge-freezer was magnificent, with a clever system that meant you could open the top door without exposing the entire fridge, to extract a bottle of chilled white wine to sip on the terrace. There were five possible dining areas catering for all weathers. My favourite was a huge stone table in the garden room, that could seat at least 12 people. A well-equipped laundry room was tucked away in an outside corner. So French! I can imagine the lady of the house telling her architect she didn’t want to hear the racket of a a washing-machine spinning in the kitchen. The pool was fresh water with a filter contraption permanently floating around, so no stinging eyes from too much chlorine. Our younger daughter and family drove from Dorset, stopping off at Versailles on the way back. It meant they could bring bicycles and so we did indeed have fresh croissants for breakfast. St Remy is a charming town with a Wednesday market filled with pottery, lavender soaps, cashmere, wooden bowls and other tempting trinkets. We ate out once at the recommended Le Maison de Beouf, but sat outside where the evening was quite spoiled by local lads roaring up on down on very noisy motorbikes. In the end we decided it was foolish to go elsewhere when Domaine Lumiere was so beautiful. So we just took turns to cook dinner with produce from the local supermarket with its stunning displays of huge fresh tomatoes, strawberries, cheeses and of course local wines. My favourite was a Cotes de Rhone called Cairanne. There are plenty of gorgeous little villages to explore and another market at Eygalieres that was easier to walk around. I bought a rope of garlic and a bag of turmeric this time. A trip up the mountains to see the extraordinary rock formations of Les Baux and a visit to the sanitorium where Vincent Van Gogh stayed and painted some of his most famous works rounded off a week to remember at Domaine Lumiere.

It was a great day to spend in Provence. Three places, three different themes. We had absolutely a wonderful time during this trip. Our tour guide, Coco, was super friendly and knowledgeable. We had learned a lot from her and truly enjoyed every minute on our tour.

Loved Le Beaux and the market at San Remy. Arles was kind of a letdown after those two other places. Also choose to go to the monastery where Van Gogh recovered as it's beautiful there. Our guide was very knowledgeable throughout the trip.

The description of the tour strongly implied it would be guided. Despite the fact that it wasn't, we enjoyed seeing the various places on our own. We particularly liked Arles. In Saint Remy, the whole group went to the hospital. The additional time in the town was unnecessary since there was nothing special about it. The driver, Remy, was very talkative and made clear he was very concerned about traffic heading back to Aix. This led him to drop us, not at the Tourist Office, but in some side street. We had no idea where we were.

We had such a fun group of people (7 passengers), that we had a great time on our tour, despite it being a stormy day. Poor Tomas, our driver, felt so bad as if he was personally responsible for the weather, but he worked with us to adjust the itinerary around the storms, and we ended up having a fun and informative trip. He did a great job.

Remy, Adrien and Luci provided my family of 11 two days of guiding through wine tasting, cheese tasting, and city tours of St. Remy and Marseille that was perfect. Timing of the day was spot on, we were never bored, great places to eat, wonderful history. Can't recommend them more highly!

Melissa is an exceptional guide. She is very knowledgeable, a great communicator and highly organised. We had a great day visiting the 3 towns and touring the hospital where Van Gogh stayed. We highly recommend this tour - it would be very difficult & time consuming to visit these places without a car.

A great day Sebastien was friendly and well informed A good group of people This was before the heatwave set in

Explored this beautiful region of Provence and many of the lovely villages with our expert and fun driver/guide, Sylvia. She really made the countryside come alive and worked hard to make the most of our time. The scenery was stunning and the company was wonderful! Highly recommended.

You see 3 different places and they are all amazing! My sister in law felt we could've spent longer in each so if there were only 2 stops that would've been ok too. But we couldn't decide which one we'd skip. Lol. Visiting Van Gogh 's asylum was probably the highlight for us.. We would've liked to have visited the castle in le Baux but didn't have time. Also would've liked to have done the Carrieres Des Luminieres. The market in St Remy was only open for one more hour so while a good one to explore probably needed more time. Arles was unique with the ruins and more Van Gogh info.. Overall we loved it!

Great tour guide. Knowledgeable and explained things well. We would certainly use him in the future.

It was very interesting and the guide Donato was so well informed and told us a lot about the three destinations.

Emanuel is an excellent tour guide. He provided interesting historic information. He offered site seeing suggestions.

A la Francaise supplied us with 2 excellent tour guides over 3 days of activities. Adrien (AD) and Remy were excellent and knowledgeable guides. AD took us on busy day in Arles, Les Baux and St Remy. We were in a group of 6 people and AD started us off with some ice breaking conversations so that we could get to know each other. He then told us things about the region that we did not know in an entertaining and interesting way. We were delighted that he was also our guide for a wine tour the next day. In addition to being knowledgeable about the tour, he gave us plenty of information about the geography and history of the region. Our final tour to Avignon was with Remy. It was a private tour with a cooking class as well as a historical tour. Remy was knowledgeable about his subject matter and took us on a fascinating tour of the Papal Palace. A la Francaise has a fleet of comfortable mini-vans with seating for 7 or 8 people. With only 4 full days in Provence we were determined to experience as much as we could and AD and Remy ensured that we got the most out of our time. We would highly recommend the tours that A la Francaise offers.

It was good. There is a lot of free time to stroll on your own within each town, which I liked. Our guide was very personable and lead us safely throughout the day.

Arles is a fantastic city. Experience would been better if guide had led us for more than the first 15 minutes of the tour.

Fantastic well organized trip. Our guide was excellent and very knowledgeable. There was plenty of time to explore at each stop.

After the experience of the first guide from this company, I thought the second guide was good, but with the experience of Sebastian on the third trip we thought he was excellent, He blew the other ones out of the water/‘bus’, informative and obviously loved sharing his knowledge.

Greg was wonderful. He is very knowledgeable about the area, very personable and funny, and caring about each individual. I did two tours with him. One was wine tasting and the other was the villages of Liberon. Both tours were phenomenal, a lot because of him!

We had a super day visiting these three very different places and we were lucky with our guide Morgane who was knowledgeable, friendly and adaptable. Arles was my personal favourite with all the fabulous Roman architecture and history and I would like to come back and spend longer there. Les Baux was charming and quite unique, almost growing out of the rocks with some amazing views. St Remy was elegant and calm with great shopping opportunities. All in all, a terrific and day and a great way to see these places if you do not have a car.

Arles and LesBaux were fabulous. Saint-Remy I could do without, especially because I wanted more time in the other two places. Saint remy just seemed touristy. Our guide, Morgan, was great!

We took this tour from Marseille as part of a city break. It was wonderful to visit the village and market at St Rémy and to have the option to visit the hospital where Van Gogh lived for a year. Les Baux is beautiful and well worth visiting with mountain views and great shops and restaurants. Arles was quiet and restful with so many Roman remains and again great cafés and small arty shops. Well worth doing and the 8-seater car was cool and comfortable and our guide, Morgane, was superb.

Our guide Sebastian expertly drove us around and gave us time to explore the towns and see where Van Gogh worked and recovered while in the south of France. The countryside is breathtaking and well worth the time to explore. Each town offered its own unique charm and we had lots of time to visit the sites, explore the markets and do some shopping. A great day all around.

We went on a tour to Arles, Les Beaux and Saint Remy yesterday. We were very pleased with the experience. Sebastien was a great guide for our first ever tour in France. He was very informative and friendly. The pace of the tour was just right. We were able to see and appreciate the sights while keeping to the schedule. We enjoyed the market at Arles, the view and structures in Les Beaux, and the laid back charm of Saint Remy.

Sebastian was a great guide for our first ever tour in France, informative and cheerful. The pace of the tour was just right. We were able to see and appreciate the sights while keeping the schedule. We enjoyed the market at Arles, the view and structures in Les Beaux, and the laid back charm of Saint Remy.

Had a wonderful day with Remy our well informed guide. Arles is rich in history as well as beautiful.

Our guide Greg made it a memorable experience. In addition to giving us ample free time to explore each of the three stopover points, he provided during the drive a detailed but entertaining explanation of the history and geography of the region. He also provided an excellent overview of wine-growing in the region. We would in fact recommend any local tour where Greg is your guide.

A fantastic tour giving you some wonderful contrasting aspects of the region (village market, mountain town, Gallo-Roman city). Just the right amount of guided insight and free time to explore yourself. Our guide (Sebastien) was both knowledgable and good company. The tour is great value too.

Lovely tour. Loved Les Baux and Saint Remy, where we visited a monastery where Van Gogh lived. Tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and friendly.

Seb is a great guide and this is a very enjoyable tour. The 3 towns are lovely and the small group makes the day more personal

Arles was interest and Les Beaux was beautiful. We had 2 hrs in each place and that was enough time to explore and eat. St Rémy was a bit of a disappointment - just a little town of shops, pretty hot nothing interesting. With only an hour in St Rémy there was no time to see the Rand artifacts or walk in the steps of Van Gogh

Nicholas was an exceptional guide, so knowledgeable, and made such an effort to include us all. I would certainly recommend it.

I have taken Viator tours all over the world and Caroline our Guide was the worst ever! My sentiment was shared by other people on our tour. All she did was drop us off in each town, hand us a map, and told us what time she would pick us up. Sometimes her instructions for even this were unclear! Fortunately there was another Tour Guide (in training) with us named Alex who made the tour enjoyable and was very good at explaining what we needed to see in each town. If not for Alex, the day would have been a total disaster! I hope Viator pays attention to this review. Enjoy!

Les Baux was beautiful and hAd a wonderful lunch on a terrace overlooking valley and mountains. Big disappointment was we did not go to Arles first as was promoted to experience the best market in Provence. Also light on the history of where we were going.

Les Baux & Carrier's de luminaries was a favorite. Young woman was very personable, just not as interactive or informative as we would have hoped.

On this trip there were 3 stops of between 1.5 and 2 hours each where we were given a map and left to explore on our own . The highlight of this trip for me was the Arena at Arles - it took my breath away . The 2 hour time allocation gave plenty of time to explore Arles and its roman architecture. Our guide Ludo and trainee Geoff were very knowledgeable and helpful. Les Baux is beautiful with exceptional scenery and a mecca for local produce . The market at St Remy was busy but the town center is well worth exploring. We really enjoyed the trip and is ideal for independent travelers like us who are happy to follow a map . It is not a fully guided tour

We loved this tour! Nelly was a great guide, responsive to the group and fun. We really liked the format of the tour - in a van with guide commentary and then on our own in the various locations.

I want to warn other tourists that you need to book the Carrières de Lumières show in advance - apparently - according to our tour guide. When you have travelled to another country, and booked up for an expensive tour, it is very disappointing to find out that parts of it are not (in fact) possible. Please put that somewhere in your literature! Thanking you.

Had a great tour with Greg to Arles, Baux, and St. Remy! Despite the heavy rains we all had a great time. Everything was well-explained and our transportation was excellent. We were given as much time as we wanted along the way and our stops allowed us time to tour the points of the tour on our own. We shopped and took plenty of photos. Our guide was delightful and thoughtful.

My mother and I were treated to a very exclusive trip of various Van Gogh sites, as we were a group of two! Olivier was very attentive to our needs and hugely knowledgeable about Aix and its surrounding areas. We had the chance to see many places where Van Gogh worked and stayed. The day was nicely paced and value for money.

I was expecting more of a tour, and much more emphasis on Van Gogh as opposed to just transportation to various villages - not worth the price

<p>We bookend this tour mainly because of our interest in van Gogh. Great was out disappointment upon arriving at the Musée Estrine Présence Van Gogh in St Remy just to discover that the musée only opened at 14:00 and we would therefore not be able to visit. The guide didnt know about the times, surely they should be informed as to opening times of the sites. Her response was a mere, Im so sorry Well, not good enough. The second dissappointment was the fact that the Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole as well as the archeological site were also both closed and the guide yet again unaware of the fact... The reason was that the 1 November is a public holiday in France and nor Viator not the Travel Company informed us about the fact that these sites were going to be closed. The next stop was Les Baux de Provence, which was a hightlight. The light show, Carrièrs de Lumièrs, was a breathtaking experience!<br/> At the last stop at Arles, we decided not to join the group and walked the route of Van Gogh and view some of the sites which he painted. Little info was given by the guide about Van Gogh which is a pitty. All in all not worth the amount of money one pays for this tour, seeing that none of the entrance fees are included.</p>

<p>Tour Guide didn't give us any introduction that is related to Van Gogh, therefore, we had missed Saint-Paul Hospital in St. Remy. The whole trip was very little in relevant to Van Gogh. I don't recommend this tour.</p>