It took 20 visits to Provence before Keith Van Sickle and his wife decided to make the region their part-time home. A Northern California native, Van Sickle spent his early years on an island in the San Francisco Bay – Alameda, California. “It’s a sleepy town, an oasis of 1950’s …

In 1999, a decade after the publication of Peter Mayle’s “A Year in Provence”, Georgina Causton and her partner decided to take a sabbatical year. Smitten by the South of France, they never returned to live in London. Instead, they bought a house and three mortgages later ended up with …

Provence’s pine forests, Mistral winds and the summer symphony of the cigales fuel Tracy Rawles’ creative writing. Rawles published her first book Charlie’s World of Glittering Powers, in November 2015. Charlie is a cigale, a cicada (or at least inspired by the cicadas), this is a description of the book’s central …

Trailing her degrees from Yale and the University of New York, former actress Heather Robinson changed careers to become a travel writer. She has been living in France for over 14 years with her photographer companion. You can read more about Heather’s favourite spots in Arles and her “Lost in …

Before we moved to France I had read Peter Mayle’s account of his idyllic year in the Luberon region of Provence, and thoroughly enjoyed it. However, when planning our great escape from the grey-skied rat-race that is the City of London we never contemplated moving to the Luberon. Somehow it …

When we travel, we usually shun hotels. Sure, there’s a lot to be said about room service and having someone make your bed every day, but with the advent of Airbnb, HomeAway, and other vacation rental websites, we’ve opened our eyes to a new way to live like locals.  Why …

Jane Satow is many things, a wife, mother, good friend and private guide. You can read more about her company Provence Cultural Tours and two unique yoga retreats in Provence here. After ten years in France, Jane gets asked by clients and friends who are visiting to share her favourite …

Challenged to find ratatouille and timely updates on current events, Lynne Alderson took matters into her hands and launched Aixcentric. After three years, this blog is THE go-to source for what is happening in and around Aix en Provence. From bus strikes to gallery openings, from Marseille’s shopping to the …

My wife and I live part of the year in St-Rémy-de-Provence, and just south of us lies the charming village of Maussane-les-Alpilles. It sits at the foot of the Alpilles Mountains, near the famous château of Les Baux-de-Provence. The area is rich with olive groves and Maussane makes a nice …

One of the life experiences I cherish the most is spending time along the Côte d’Azur. However, I must confess that I’m geographically challenged, so the more I visited, the more confused I became about something relatively straightforward. “Which seaside towns are below which hilltop villages?” To settle the question, …