Provence and the French Riviera

Eight days, three distinct regions, and more rosé than is strictly sensible. Bienvenue en Provence!

Nice is the kind of city that makes an immediate case for itself: the long curve of the Promenade des Anglais, the terracotta rooftops and ochre walls of the old town, and that particular Mediterranean light that seems to warm everything it touches. Even arriving feels like a small ceremony.

This evening we'll meet our Tour Leader and fellow travellers over a welcome dinner at a local restaurant, sampling the vibrant Mediterranean flavours that define Nice. The Côte d'Azur has officially begun.

Our first stop this morning is Antibes – a walled port town with a Roman-era sea wall and a market that smells of lavender and warm bread – where old-world charm and effortless glamour live side by side. Your Tour Leader will lead us through the narrow streets and past the old port, where fishing boats have long since been outnumbered by superyachts, yet the atmosphere remains its own. The Provençal market is a feast before the feast: stalls piled with tapenade, herbes de Provence, lavender sachets, local cheeses and bolts of printed linen. Take your time, fill your bag and find your own favourite corner.

Free time follows to explore further at your own pace, and the old town opens up to those who wander without a plan. Then we'll continue along the coast to our hotel for the evening, the Mediterranean catching the last of the afternoon light as we go.

This morning begins with an education. Provence rosé is one of the most misunderstood wines in the world – too often imitated, rarely matched. A visit to a local wine estate introduces us to the story behind one of the region's celebrated labels: a guided walk among the vines, an explanation of what gives these pale, barely-pink wines their particular character, and then the tasting, wines that somehow capture the ease of a long summer afternoon and wild thyme simultaneously. Lunch at the local wine estate is the highlight: eaten slowly in the shade, soaking up the rhythm of a Provençal afternoon.

This afternoon we'll wander through Aix-en-Provence, a graceful university town of fountains, plane trees and sun-warmed limestone where the café terraces are always full and the pace is always unhurried. Look out for calissons – the almond and candied melon sweets that Aix has been making since the 15th century – before we continue to Avignon, our base for the next four nights and one of the most storied medieval cities in Europe.

There are landmarks you build up in your mind and landmarks that make your mind go quiet. The Pont du Gard is the second kind. Three tiers of Roman arches spanning the Gardon river, built without mortar around 50 AD and still standing with the kind of confidence that makes modern infrastructure feel slightly underwhelming. We'll have time to take it in at our own pace – the scale of it, the colour of the stone, the way it seems to belong perfectly to the landscape around it – before heading to Arles.

Arles is the city that drove Van Gogh to produce some of his most vivid and brilliant work, and the light really is different here. Our Tour Leader will take us on an orientation walk before free time to explore. You might choose the Roman amphitheatre built in 90 AD and still hosting events today, the Church of St Trophime with its extraordinary Romanesque portal, the Van Gogh Foundation, or simply a table outside a café to observe the rhythm of the city. The evening ends back in Avignon over a group dinner together, swapping favourites from a day that offered rather a lot of them.

Seven hundred years of papal intrigue, medieval grandeur and southern French living tend to add up to something rather special. Avignon is that something. This morning your Tour Leader will guide us through the medieval streets, past cobbled squares and up to the Palace of the Popes, the largest Gothic palace in existence. For much of the 14th century this was the centre of the Roman Catholic world, and its imposing presence, with its towers, its halls, its thick defensive walls, makes the ambition of the medieval papacy suddenly very legible.

The afternoon is entirely yours. Follow the city walls to find the best views over the Rhône, browse the antique shops along the Rue des Teinturiers, or settle in at a wine bar and debate the tasting notes of a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and a plate of local charcuterie. Avignon rewards the curious.

Today takes us out into the Alpilles for a day that moves between art, olives and Van Gogh. First, the Carrières de Lumières in Les Baux-de-Provence – an immersive light show projected across the vast walls, floor and ceiling of a former stone quarry, where you find yourself standing inside the artwork rather than looking at it. The effect is genuinely unlike anything else. Then, an olive farm where the cultivation secrets of these ancient groves are shared properly, alongside a tasting that reveals how much nuance a well-made olive oil can hold – floral, peppery, grassy, green. A picnic lunch in the grove follows, with the Alpilles as a backdrop, the air smelling of wild herbs, and nowhere else to be.

This afternoon we'll visit the Saint Paul de Mausole Monastery in Saint-Rémy, where Van Gogh spent a year between 1889 and 1890, producing over 150 paintings from his room and the garden. 20 large-scale reproductions are displayed in the field outside, and seeing them in the landscape that inspired them changes the way you look at them entirely. Make the most of the free time that follows in Saint-Rémy to explore before returning to Avignon for the evening.

The Cistercian monks of Sénanque Abbey have been living in deliberate simplicity since the 12th century, and walking into their world this morning – lavender fields surrounding honey-stone cloisters, the silence broken only by birdsong and the distant sound of bells – it's easy to understand the appeal. The abbey is one of the most photographed buildings in France, and standing in front of it, it's immediately obvious why. Nearby, the village of Gordes clings magnificently to its rocky hillside: a maze of vaulted medieval streets, a Renaissance château and views across the Luberon valley that artists have inspired artists for centuries.

Our route then winds through Luberon itself, past hilltop villages with sun-washed walls that glow in the afternoon light, through vineyards and cherry orchards and a pastoral landscape that seems lifted from a painting. We arrive at our hotel in the Verdon Regional Nature Park, where a final group dinner together celebrates eight days well spent in Provençal France.

The Gorges du Verdon saves its most dramatic moment for last. Known as the Grand Canyon of Europe, this extraordinary river gorge cuts through the limestone plateau for over 25 kilometres. The water far below is the colour of a tropical lagoon, the sheer walls drop hundreds of metres to meet it, and the road that traces the rim offers viewpoints that stop you in your tracks. It's a jaw-dropping finale to a tour that has moved from the glittering coast to the deep interior and back.

From there, we'll make our way back to Nice, where our journey through Provence and the French Riviera comes to a close. The Mediterranean will be waiting, the sun will be low and golden, and there'll be just enough time to wonder what you'd do differently if you did the whole thing again. The answer, almost certainly, is very little.