I'm planning a trip for June 2014. Hopefully 7 nights in Provence; 5 in Paris. Just us two basically healthy oldsters. Thanks.

I have dreadful luck with noise in hotels. I am a very light sleeper and hotels just don't work very well for me, sadly.

Since it looks like you have a week in Provence, would you consider renting an apartment of villa?

I understand you want to have good access to public transport.

The patio rooms in Hotel Le Colbert are very quiet.

Back in the day, we often enjoyed self-catered vacations, both here in the States and abroad. At our age/stage we've found that when we travel, we prefer to be "waited on," rather than having to go grocery shopping, prepare our own meals, etc. In fact, we're looking for the first time into taking some kind of small group tour (I've posted elsewhere about this), just so that more or less everything will be taken care of. Not the way we prefer to travel, but it's better than not being able to travel at all.

Have you looked at Chateau Talaud? We are staying there in July and it looks beautiful and relaxing!

For quiet and restful luxury, I suggest La Mirande. While it is in the center and adjacent to the Popes' Palace, there is no vehicular traffic. Since you are interested in a weekly stay, you may want to consider calling the hotel directly for the rate. Don't worry, they speak English. In addition to being a lovely property, they offer many activities and interesting tours to their guests.

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There has been quite a lot of info about hotels, including the Mirmande, Hotel d'Europe etc on Nancy's other thread, including the suggestion to check directly with hotels she's interested in:

tripadvisor.co.uk/…47981328

Phidou, we also learned on the other thread that they won't have a car, so are planning to take tours etc from Avignon.

I'm grateful for the responses, and I promise you-- I've been doing plenty of research into each of the suggestions. La Mirande looks like a wonderful place indeed, but I'm fairly certain that it's well over our budget. I will, though, contact the hotel to see if there are special rates for staying a week. At the same time, I'm coming around to the idea of splitting our Provence time between Avignon and Aix, just for the variety. However, my husband sometimes gets distressed about moving, so I may wind up choosing one or the other. I've been reading all sorts of posts to try to decide which it should be if it's to be just one Provence stop, but of course chacun a son gout.

Thanks very much.