There’s pretty much nowhere that hasn’t been written up in some guide—Provence is one of the most popular destinations around, and in August/September there’s no avoiding tourists. Have you ascertained where you’ll be staying, and will you have a car (trains only run along the coast, except the steam train, and buses are infrequent to some places)? More to the point what kind of things are you looking to do?

Judging from your profile you’ll want to seek out wine—well no worries there! If you want to do some climbing I can suggest that you check out the lovely little valley of the Sourn which has some fairly popular cliffs to scale (and a stream to bathe in afterwards). Correns is a cute little village down the road and is not on the usual tourist trail (whereas its larger neighbour Cotignac is).

Further on, and despite the tourists you have to vist the Grand Canyon and Moustiers (climb up to the chapel), making sure you pass through Aups on a saturday morning for the market, then if you can find a free spot spend the afternoon by the lake, take a picnic of goats cheese, local bread, and wine (of course) then swim in its turquoise waters.

No visit would be complete without a beach, and my favourite place is the Rochers du Bocca (Cannes – La Bocca) but you’ll have to get there early or take the train (roads are packed). However the beaches below Eze aren’t bad at all either and it won’t be quite as packed as August is. You will however unfortunately miss the Cannes fireworks festival. Check the Cannes site for extensive events. Likewise Nice, where you might be able to catch some live performances in the old Chateau gardens over the city (umm, actually last one is on the 1st of September).

If you make it over to St. Remy (below Avignon) the Cathedrale des Images is well worth the high entry price and there’s a great walk along the Alpilles above it.

Nightlife on the Riviera is costly and not terribly exciting (IMHO), but there’s gaggles of expats in certain places. For info on the expat community check out riviera.angloinfo.com.

This’ll have to do for now, gotta dash…