The bad: having to reschedule our flights to France within 2 hours of our scheduled trip was definitely suboptimal. It made for an extra tiring first day with 7 extra hours in airports. However, I have to say that's expedia worked very hard to make everything work out and gave us a $50 voucher for the inconvenience.
The highlights: our favorites were the boat ride through the calanques, kayaking the gorges du Verdon and that refreshing swim in the river, amazing panoramas driving through the gorges, the symphony of colors of ochre in Roussillon, and of course driving and tasting through the Rhone valley.
I have to say that the weather was super cooperative throughout the trip. We only felt a couple drops of rain in Roussillon and in the vineyards though there were some storms at night and evenings. But for the most part the days were sunny and beautiful with great lighting for our lovely drives. Unfortunately, the lack of rain is probably bad for the Rhone region as it will probably mean a tough harvest for the vineyards.
Places we stayed:
Villa d'orient in Marseille - we had the Mauve room which is the top floor with a view of the calanques and our private terrace overlooking the calanques. The room was small but had everything we needed and the view was beautiful. There was also a good breakfast in the garden - simple but complete. (I wouldn't stay in any of the other rooms because they seemed too small but ours was great.)
Auberges des Salles along lake st Croix - we got a room with a terrace overlooking the lake and the view could not have been better. However, there was a problem with the AC which sucked but we were cool and not bitten with the terrace doors open at night and they gave us a 25% discount. We opted out of the 12 euro/pp breakfast and got breakfast in town which we ate by the lake - I highly recommend this option.
Maison des ocres in Roussillon - spacious room in little hotel with a pool. Nice and efficient, good price.
Wine B&B in chateauneuf du pape - when I saw that this B&B was run by a master sommelier in chateauneuf du pape, I was sold. It's in a classic three floor restored building with a large garden complete with grape vines and a fountain. We stayed in the Carmen room and had a nice view of the rooftops and mountains. The room was furnished with classic matching furniture. Only complaint would be that the bed is a little small - like a full bed. We attended the apero fun she organized and learned a lot about wines from the region and tasted 2 wines we liked (we went to the cave of the first one and bought 2 bottles of chateauneuf du pape white from domaine Mayard, called la Crau de ma mere, tried their reds and also really liked their red by the same name.)
