Aix en Provence & Cassis Tour

2Qbeds, Jun 2024

This was the fourth of 4 exceptional private tours with Romain from Guide Provence. We had so much fun! We learned so much! This tour was worth every penny. I highly recommend Guide Provence and Romain for all of your private tour needs!

Romain met us in front of Aix’s tourist information center, an easy walk from our hotel. He showed us all around the streets and alleyways of Aix, pointing out certain stores, museums, buildings, Cezanne's childhood school and home, university buildings, and churches while regaling us with fun historical details and vignettes about all kind of things -- art, history, culture, and more. Fantastic!

We then hopped in his very comfortable, roomy car and he drove us to Cassis, taking the scenic route, stopping at a gorgeous overlook of Cassis and The Calanques National Park on a beautiful windy day that refreshingly threatened rain from time to time. Just as we got back in the car for the rest of the drive to Cassis, the clouds let loose — it was spectacular!

Cassis was colorful and charming, unique and refreshing. It was so different from all of the other towns we had visited so far. We stopped at a cute cafe and had a delicious spread of local wine, local cheeses, shrimp, mussels, bread, greens, olives, pickles, and the like. The meal and conversation were memorable and such a treasured part of our visit. (Romain is so fun and easy to be around!) After lunch, we walked around the port and the town as he told us more about the local geography, the Calanques, the local history and culture before taking the drive back to our Aix hotel. (I'm aware that a boat tour of the Calanques is a typical add-on to a tour of Cassis, but the wind, weather, and choppy seas did not lend themselves to boating that day, so I did not bring it up. Neither did Romain. We had an extraordinary time nevertheless!)

Throughout our 4 different private tours with Romain, he readily adapted aspects of our tours to the weather, to any logistical problem of the moment, to any stated desires. This is just one of the reasons that I often hire a private tour guide on so many of my vacations. My friends, family, and I all love to learn. With an exceptional private tour guide like Romain, all you have to do is show up — and you will learn. All of the typical tourist concerns of unforeseen obstacles on one’s big sightseeing day will fade away — because a great private tour guide will take care of all that, will adapt to the weather, to the unforeseen circumstances, to your individual preferences, for you. Romain took care of everything for us! He is outstanding!

If interested, I also posted a general review of Guide Provence and Romain's outstanding service here:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187253-d17733634-Reviews-Guide_Provence-Marseille_Bouches_du_Rhone_Provence_Alpes_Cote_d_Azur.html