Bouches-du-Rhône continues to surprise me. We’ve had bumpy experiences in Provence, and I tend to picture this area just south as similar – and then nearly always be pleasantly proven wrong. Bordering Vaucluse to the north, Gard to the west and Var to the east, it includes Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Arles, Cassis, Les Baux-de-Provence, and more. Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (in Bouches-du-Rhône) is included in my notes for the Camargue.

Aix-en-Provence

We liked it! Far more than expected, we’ll come back again. A night with half days on either side is perfect to see a few museums and explore the town, eat well.

We debated staying outside of town, or in the old town itself, and were really happy we stayed in the center. The old town is lovely, lively, and packed – but not just with tourists, this is a fun town with a lot of locals. It’s a major university town, and given the chance I’d choose this for my study abroad as well! 

The surroundings are typical ugly/modern/run-down, with terrible traffic. It’s way more pleasant to ditch the car entirely and stick to the center, walking. Our hotel was the **Hôtel des Augustins, in a converted convent. It’s a little tired, but for the price (187 Euros, in August 2025), the massive room was a real bargain! Great location, friendly staff. There’s a garage (Parking Mignet) about 3 blocks away if you drive in.

Food:

• We had lunch at **Colde – entirely based on it being in the right place at the right time, and it looked cute and busy. Food was on the casual side, but very tasty.
• Dinner was at *LA TABLE DU PIGONNET, walking distance, but outside of the city center (not in the best neighborhood). This is a fancy, old hotel with big grounds, service is very formal and classic. We weren’t impressed – it feels more dated than well-preserved – and wouldn’t recommend staying there, or a meal.

Museums:

On to the art – because this is why you’re visiting, especially in 2025. I’ll borrow from the NY Times here:

52 places in 2025: At 20, before he was “the father of modern art,” Paul Cezanne was composing murals in the living room of his family’s estate, Jas de Bouffan, on the western outskirts of Aix-en-Provence, in southern France. The artist spent 40 years at this 18th-century manor house, which reopens this summer after a four-year renovation. Declaring 2025 the Year of Cezanne, Aix-en-Provence invites visitors to tour Jas de Bouffan, where the artist created works like “The Card Players,” and view a newly discovered nautical fresco. Art fans can also visit the nearby Bibémus quarries, where the painter captured the Provençal landscapes and the looming Montagne Ste.-Victoire, and Cezanne’s freshly renovated Les Lauves studio, to see the last palette he used and join a new tour that focuses on his final masterpieces. In town, Musée Granet will present the largest collection of Cezanne’s work to date (June 28 to Oct. 12), with more than 100 oil paintings, watercolors and drawings.

You can also read about it in the Guardian here, and more in the NY Times here.

We booked **Jas de Bouffan as a French guided tour (1 hr) in advance. It’s not a pretty walk there (bus is better), but it was interesting as a backdrop to what will exist in the future – because it’s very much the start of a journey of restoration and very little is intact (for the most part, the important decorations that survived are part of the Musée Granet show. They were really pumping people through – 20-30 every 15 minutes, and it was hard to hear given all the people in the relatively small building at the same time.

I’m glad we saw Jas de Bouffan before **Musee Granet – also a total zoo from a crowd perspective – gave the content much more context. We actually preferred the small but gorgeous permanent collection upstairs.

Outside of the Cezanne exhibits, we went to:

• **Fondation Vasarely: I had low expectations and was very impressed. This isn’t exactly my art – but after seeing the museum, I’m sold, especially for the large-format work and textiles. It’s not a great part of town and kind of annoying to get to, but make the effort.
• **Granet Museum – Collection Jean Planque was really interesting – a unique compilation of many of the most pivotal artists of the 20th century in a 16th-century Carmelite Chanel. The collector was a Swiss art buyer for an important museum in Basel, and these are the things he bought, personally, for his own collection – mostly on a limited budget at the time. Impressive.
• **Musée Paul Arbaud is not a good dollar for experience equation, but is worth it with the city pass. Artifacts of the town, you’ll be in-and-out in 20 minutes.

Leaving Aix-en-Provence, we had a very good lunch at **Auberge Provençale (in Meyreuil) – a last minute choice (it was near a car wash, at lunch time). It’s on the old road in a historic building, and was really tasty. Bonus points for cat.

Arles

Arles is wonderful – one of our favorite finds of recent years. It’s full of Roman artifacts, museums, restaurants, and cute independent shops. It’s clearly popular – we saw a walking tour from Viking river cruises, and lots and lots of Brits – but it doesn’t feel crowded, just lively. We want to spend more time here!

Walking around the town, somewhat aimlessly, is the best way to experience everything. There’s the amphitheater (now known as the arenas of Arles), the ancient theater, and surprising arches around many corners. 

Specifically, what did we love? 

• The ***Museon Arlaten – my, this is good. It’s an “ethnography” museum with a lot of history, wonderful artifacts, in a dramatic setting. I think it’s fabulous, a must see.
• The **Museum of Ancient Arles and Provence, while not huge, was another winner. Do it after you’ve wandered the town, to appreciate what they found in the local area. It’s not crowded, air-conditioned, and has a small and well curated collection.
• **Musée de la Mode et du Costume – Fragonard is fairly new and a real gem – a collection focused on the fashion of Arles. It’s not large, but it’s worth the time.

We’ve had a few meals, several wonderful:

• **Chardon was a lovely dining experience – Every two to three months, a new team takes over the kitchens. Our server was the (British) sommelier, who had great taste and was fun to talk to. The food was just okay, but in the setting, it didn’t really matter. 
• **Le Gibolin was great – young team with aspirations of growth, working hard. Good service, pretty outdoor dining, everything was tasty and well-priced. Interesting local wine, including natural options.
• *La Placette was perfectly average. I wouldn’t return to a city with this many restaurants, but it was fine.

I booked a room at Le Cloître (Hôtel à Arles), which looked very nice – for the wrong month. We made a last minute reservation at the *Hôtel & Spa Jules César Arles – MGallery. It’s terrible, extremely tired, pretty dingy, poor food. There’s a very sad pool on the backside and the rooms smell like smoke. Skip!

Les Baux-de-Provence

Les Baux-de-Provence, which we did as a day trip, was great! I’d consider making one of the many surrounding hotels a base for a day or two – it’s right next to Arles, you could explore sites in Provence, and even the Camargue – a better choice over where we stayed in Castillon-du-Gard. It’s famous for many things, including being the origin for the name of bauxite (coined for aluminium ore when first discovered there in 1821). It is very popular – over 1.5 million visitors per year, compared to about 20 residents in the upper part of the commune – but we still found it very worthwhile and not particularly overwhelming from a crowds perspective.

We had lunch at **Le Petit Rocher, which was excellent. There are a LOT of places to eat in the winding streets of this town, and this may have been a lucky guess, but we were very happy with it. Fresh, seasonal food of the region.

Limestone has been extracted from quarries around Les Baux from at least the end of the 2nd century BC. Perhaps the most famous site in the area is the **Carrières de Lumières – a massive light and music show set in the quarries, which has inspired many traveling shows since. We were surprised to learn this has been running for ages – from 1976 to be specific. It’s impressive, both in scale and impact, and worth a visit.

The location of the town – defensible and central – was along major trade lines, leading to an interesting mix of artifacts and people, including a major Greek population. Our favorite part was the remains of the immense **castle – built from the 11th to the 13th century over seven hectares. The princes of Les Baux are said to be descended from the Biblical Magi Balthazar. There’s a long and complex history of ownership that in a final twist somehow evolved into being offered to the Grimaldi family as a marquisate in favor of Hercule de Grimaldi, Prince of Monaco (1642–1780) – the title Marquis of Les Baux is still carried by the Prince of Monaco. The site itself is massive and you can crawl all over it – an athletic and fun experience.

Cassis

We tried to visit once on the fly – don’t do this. Cassis is small (the port at least) and you’ll quickly get frustrated. Take two – we booked a lovely place to stay with parking, and it made it so much better. We probably won’t make a point of returning, but a lot worked – it’s nice, if not exactly our place.

We stayed at a Chambre d’Hôtes, **Clos du Petit Jesus, which was excellent. Very well outfitted and comfortable, with a pool, privacy, and views of the sea. The owners couldn’t have been nicer (seriously), and they did us the courtesy of speaking to us in French the entire time – for us, clearly not because speaking English was an issue for them. Breakfast was timely and very good. Also bonus points for being car/motorcycle people and having great taste in everything we saw.

Cassis has Lime bikes now – this was a surprising life saver, as parking is hard to come by, the streets narrow, and the distances generally further than expected (especially given hills). **La Presqu’île was our outermost destination on day 1, for a dinner – about a 40 minute walk and not a particularly nice one, poorly lit and uphill in many sections. By bike, it made a lot more sense. The meal was probably worth it – it’s very touristy, very much a date-night experience, and expensive, but the food was actually good and we liked seeing the broader expanse of Cassis.

Our full day, we did go to the beach – after scoping out all the beach areas in easy walking distance. 

So the beach – **Plage du Bestouan. This is where you want to be; to the right of the port (if you’re facing the water), it’s protected, scenic, and has beach clubs if you’re willing to pay a little more to get off the rocks. We rented chairs at **Paillote des Bestouan – perfect. 

Food:

• *La Storia di Vincenzo: renamed from “ La Table du 7,” this restaurant in the port is not particularly stand-out. It was fine, and we liked talking to the guest at the next table. Not particularly recommended.
• **Casalini Cassis is the popular ice cream spot. Galen calls it “pretty good.”

Alt hotels to consider:

• Hotel De La Plage – Mahogany (good location, not super fancy but nice beachy vibes)
• Just behind it, Le Jardin d’Emile, facing the parking lot rather than the ocean – but 10 feet further away, so does it matter?
• Hôtel Les Roches Blanches: Perfectly situated on the edge of town, very high end, if you stayed here you’d probably just stay at their pool. The outer edges of where I’d consider staying.

La Ciotat

Thumbs down, unfortunately. We had an okay lunch at **The Cotton Club in the marina. It’s not a super crowded area, even in August, but was lacking architectural charm, and didn’t feel like a place we’d want to spend much time. 

Do take the slightly longer route from Cassis, however, to drive the gorgeous ***Route des Crêtes, which overlooks the coastal cliffs.

Heading east we drove through Bandol (okay) and Saint-Cyr-Sur-Mer (also okay) – didn’t look like bad choices, just not particularly exciting. Better than La Ciotat. Toulon just felt very large and industrial.

Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade

From Lourmarin, our first stop was at Château La Coste (in Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade) was sadly a bust for us, due to torrential rain. It looks amazing for the art, grounds, and generally very expensive, curated experience  (there are also multiple fancy restaurants to try, and a 5 star hotel). We made it about a KM from the entrance before the rain kicked in, torrentially. Next time!

La Roque-d’Anthéron

We had a really excellent meal via a last minute google search for food near the roadway as we were driving through. ***Le Jas Restaurant is something special, aiming for greatness. 

Marseille

We haven’t really ‘been’ to Marseille and surrounds, just drove through it to get a sense of what it would be like as a destination. I’d like to go back, after doing a lot of research on where to stay, as it’s HUGE.