I will be traveling with a group of 25-year olds (3 of us) from Barcelona to Nice by car for 4 days. Is it worth it to spend one night in Toulouse? Or would it be better to head directly to the Riviera region and spend extra time there? As of now we are thinking:
Day 1: Drive from Barcelona to Toulouse, spend night in Toulouse
Day 2: Drive from Toulouse to Provence region
Avignon
Aix-en-Provence
Nimes
Spend night somewhere in Provence region (perhaps Marseilles or Montpellier?)
Day 3: Drive from Provence to Riviera
St. Tropez
Cannes
Antibes
Nice
Spend night in Nice
Day 4: Nice and Monaco, spend night in Nice
Are we missing any major sights/cities? What are Monpellier and Marseilles like? Worth going to over Toulouse? Any advice would be very helpful. Thanks!
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HELLO,
I think that your programm is impossible to do.
You have to make choices.
Toulouse is not on the way between Barcelona and Provence, so it is useless to drive so much just to see Toulouse if the aim of your trip is Provence and the French Riviera.
You should better drive from Barcelona to Nimes, stoppping on the way in Aigues Mortes and Montpellier.
If you have time you can go and see the marvellous city of Carcassonne.
Day 2 : Pont du Gard (roman acquaduct) - Avignon - Aix
Day 3 : Marseille - St Tropez - Nice
Day 4 : Nice - Monaco
It is quite a complete itinerary even if, of course you won%26#39;t see all the touristic places.
Marseille worth a visit. The view point from the basilica located at the top of a hillop overlooking the city is fantastic.
Even if the cities look very closed on your map, it can take a long time to drive between because of the traffic.
Forget St Tropez in summer as you will spend the whole day in the car (the same for Antibes and Cannes that are not really interesting)
The traffic in Marseille is also quite bad.
Avoid the rush hours (8-9 am and 5-7pm)
Have nice holidays in Provence
Delphine
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Hi there
if I were you I would drive along the coast, there are lots of good bits from Barcelona to Niece
You could visit Tossa de Mar, Rosas, Cadaques and Figueres in Spain, and have a look at Perpignan, Cap d%26#39;Agde and Sete in France. Also have a look at the wine regions of the Languedoc-Rousillon.
Toulouse is a large industrial City (centre of the French Air industry - where they are building the A380 Airbus). Although the centre might be nice, I don%26#39;t think it would be a major port-of-call from an %26#39;interesting for tourists%26#39; angle
EW
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Yes I agree the coastline beween Figueres and Perpignan is very beautiful
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Like the others, I reckon this is quite ambitious and you need a way of prioritising - definitely skip Toulouse - can you get hold of some of the green Michelin guides which give suggested itineraries and timings? It%26#39;s a pity to get somewhere really interesting (like Carcassonne?) then find you can only sprint through before piling back in the car. Talking of Michelin - have you discovered viamichelin.com/viamichelin/…MaHomePage.htm for checking routes and timings? There is also a feature on the %26#39;maps%26#39;, after you search for a town, you can scroll down the left side of the page and click on %26#39;Useful addresses nearby%26#39; for both hotel / restaurant recommendations and nearby tourist sights - they do a useful star system for rating attractions.
Personally, on the French side of the border, I%26#39;d consider the coast road to Collioure, detour to Carcassonne, the Pont du Gard, Aigues Mortes, Arles, Avignon, maybe some villages in the Luberon. To be honest, with the time you have available, I wouldn%26#39;t try to get into Marseille, though Cassis and the Calanques might appeal. Then on to Nice as you mention. Note, I said %26#39;..consider ...%26#39;, not %26#39; ... visit ..%26#39; as you won%26#39;t have time to do it all justice - you might treat this as a reconnaissance trip for future visits :-)
A final thought - this sounds like a one way trip in a rented car? Have you checked that you can drop it off in another country without a big repatriation penalty?
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