Someone wrote: >I am going to tour and rest in Provence (the area around Marseille, France). >I will spend there a week, between Oct 1st and Oct 8th, and we will rent >a car. > >I am looking for recommendations of places to visit, good restaurants to eat >and hotels to stay. > >We are more into touring the country-side, and less in the big cities. > My recommendation is to stay in gites (bed and breakfasts). We just got back from 2 weeksd in Provence and Languedoc, staying almost entirely in gites. They are listed in a guidebook you can get in france for 75 ff. They are rated 1, 2 or 3 wheat sheaves. All are in small towns and all have no more than 5 bedrooms. We also took the table d'hote dinner also. Our experiences varied from "quite pleased" to "fabulous." It helps to speak some French. Typical price for 2 for room + breakfast + dinner (5 course. well cooked, sometimes incredibly well cooked, sometimes incredible amount of wine) was between 400 and 500 ff. We found Languedoc to be similar to Provence, but much less crowded and cheaper. Lots of mediaval villages, great churches, villages, etc, etc. If you have a car and are in the countryside, I don't understand why anyone would stay anywhere other than a gite. (For US readers, you can pick up a guide by Karen Brown, which lists the better gites. Her picks were quite good. I think the book is only available in the US. The French listing is not available in US, but you can easily find in a good bookstore in Paris. The store we went to was sold out in French, so we were stuck with an embarrassing guide in English. Not so bad, given my French!) Neal
France