Places to stay in Provence

Hi everyone,

Our family (two adults, two kids, ages 7 and 5) are planning a trip to Provence for July 2011. We are looking for a villa type place that could serve as a homebase for day trips, and where we could come back to in the afternoon and hang out. Our budget is pretty flexible. We are thinking of spending either one week or two weeks in Provence.

Does anyone know of a reputable rental agency that they could recommend? Or specific places?

We like the looks of this website for Provence West, but we do not know anyone who has used these folks, so we were a little reluctant to just cold call them.

http://www.provencewest.com/

Thanks for any thoughts! Any suggestions of fun things for kids in Provence would be welcome too!

Peter

VRBO is an excellent place to start. We have booked our seven week trip through Europe starting in September and have four different VRBO properties in Spain and France. Lots of choices in Provence, but you might be a little late for booking a choice one.

I was recently introduced to www.airbnb.com which looks very interesting alternative for accommodation search. It kind of combines the social recommendations with tripadvisor and other similar type of sites.

I haven't used it yet but plan to check it out for our trip to Spain in a few weeks (just one-way ticket booked to Barcelona in two weeks, we don't plan too early ;-). The results seem to include anything from single rooms in cities to B&B's everywhere, villas, boathouses, ski lodges, pretty much anything out there that isn't quite an ordinary hotel. Some of the places are just for the extra income but many/most are run professionally.

The map search is quite useful when you know the location you're mostly interested about.

Try this place!!

www.cantogrihet.com/en/ and Tripadvisor

Enjoy.

I stayed here-
Moulin de la Roque
last year and there was a family with young children doing exactly as you describe... using the house as a base for exploring the region.

Gaby Janney, our hostess, is American and could not have been more welcoming and accommodating. On the website, look under "The Estate" for Activities for Families.

Let me know if you have any questions...

Peter, check this site out too:

http://www.maison-hotes-design.com/en/home.php

Also, this site's host, Wimco, represents villa owners in the south of France and beyond:

http://www.wimco.com/villa-rentals/europe/france/