Provence is abuzz with cultural openings, events and initiatives in the coming months – and there’s new accommodation across the region for all budgets
The Year of Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence
28 June 2025 is a hugely exciting and significant date in the calendar for Aix-en-Provence. The interior of the home of prolific, post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne will be opening to the public for the first time ever. The carefully renovated mansion, Jas de Bouffan, served as the Cézanne family’s home for 40 years and has featured in many masterpieces. Cézanne’s last studio, Les Lauves, and its surrounding gardens will also reopen to the public on the same date, following a two-year renovation. Visitors can expect to explore the paintings Cézanne created there during the final four years of his life and get a glimpse of his final palette.
To add to the buzz, a dedicated Cézanne exhibition will run from 28 June to 12 October at Musée Granet. Entitled ‘Cézanne au Jas de Bouffan’, the exhibition will display up to 100 of the Aix master’s greatest works, from oil paintings to watercolours and drawings, all gathered from renowned museums and private collections across the world. The tour retraces the artist’s fertile years at his country home and celebrates his unbreakable bond with his homeland.
A dedicated app, ‘In the Footsteps of Cézanne’, has been created to enable visitors to roam the locations where Cézanne set down his easel, enhanced by augmented reality reproductions of the works painted there.
Read more at cezanne2025.com/en.
Avignon: land of culture for 2025
The city of Avignon is honouring the 30th anniversary of its UNESCO World Heritage distinction and 25th anniversary of its European Capital of Culture title, bestowed in 2000. Visitors can enjoy exhibitions at the Cloître Saint-Louis and Eglise des Célestins (transformed into a ‘Museum of Curiosities’ for the occasion), together with the creation of Maisons Folie dedicated to art across town and Metro Europa routes reinventing urban travel.
Les Bains Pommer, Avignon’s Art-Deco public baths, are set to open on 20 June, featuring 50 superbly-preserved bathrooms and showers adorned with ceramic tiles and coal-fired boilers – you could easily be on a movie set! And a major exhibition by Jean-Michel Othoniel will see around 220 works – including 160 never seen before – installed in 10 iconic locations across the city. ‘OTHONIEL COSMOS or the Ghosts of Love’ runs from 28 June to 4 January 2026.
Arles: fashion and photography
Set inside the gorgeous Hôtel Bouchaud de Bussy in Arles, Maison Fragonard’s new Fashion and Costume Museum is set to open on 6 July, showcasing dozens of items ranging from dresses to hats, kerchiefs, skirts and trousers crafted between the 18th and 20th century. The museum was conceived by sisters Anne, Agnès and Françoise Costa, now at the helm of Maison Fragonard, who were keen to show the Provençal costume collection compiled by their mother Hélène.
Also in Arles is annual summer photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles, founded in 1970 as a springboard for contemporary creative talent and a great way to get to know this beautiful city, with around 40 exhibitions staged at various heritage sites around town and in the surrounding area. The photographic perspectives presented this year will offer a crucial counterpoint to the prevailing discourse of today, celebrating the diversity of cultures, genders and origins. Special guided tours and photography workshops will also be organised. The 2025 festival opens on 7 July and runs until 5 October.
Nice’s heritage and lesser-known prehistory
You may know Nice’s contemporary art scene – but have you discovered its older secrets? Today you can follow in our Stone Age ancestors’ footsteps across Nice and its surrounding area, retracing over 400,000 years of evolution at the Archaeology Museum in Cimiez, the Archaeological Crypt and the Grotte du Lazaret.
You can also take a virtual heritage tour of UNESCO-listed Nice via the Nice Côte d’Azur app: an immersive virtual experience featuring over 70 panoramic 360° views and various tour itineraries, including Mont Boron, Campo Longo and Cimiez. ‘Nice, the Riviera winter resort city’ has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since July 2021. This is your chance to discover lesser-known parts of the city and admire architecture unique in the world.
Nice will also be the host city for the third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in June 2025. This year’s Nice Arts Biennale supports the conference, entitled ‘The Sea Around Us’ and running at the Musée Matisse until 8 September.
Art and design in Le Var
On the island of Porquerolles off the coast of Hyères, La Villa Carmignac is hosting VERTIGO until 2 November, echoing the dizzying experience of the Mediterranean sun, the sigh of the mistral and the spray of the sea. It captures the vastness of the sky and depths surrounding Porquerolles, applying a brand-new lens to the connections between the perception of natural phenomena and abstract art post-1950.
Back on the mainland and running until the same date, you can catch Jean Dubuffet and the Magicians at Hyères’ Musée du Neil, honouring this Art Brut (‘raw art’) inventor. At a time when abstraction was promoting its supremacy in painting in France, Dubuffet innovated, disrupted and expanded horizons in art, paving the way for magic and magicians. Also in Hyères, the 40th International Fashion, Photography and Accessories Festival will be held at the Villa Noailles from 16-19 October.
Browse all le Var’s cultural sites here.
Where to stay:
New accommodation for all budgets across Provence
FIVE-STAR: Villa Miraé, Antibes
Opening June 2025
The former Impérial Garoupe – the historic five-star Relais & Châteaux hotel in Cap d’Antibes, acquired in 2023 by the Inwood Hotels group – has had a facelift. Architect Oscar Lucien Ono (of Maison Numéro 20) has created this exclusive escape with 35 rooms, including eight exceptional suites each with private terrace. Bathed in blossoming gardens, the swimming pool is the jewel of this establishment which also features two restaurants, an elegant bar and seafront solarium.
FOUR-STAR: Domaine de la Mautanne, Sainte-Tulle
Opened July 2024
Situated near Manosque, Valensole and the Gorges du Verdon with views of the southern Alps, La Mautanne is a family affair. Young chef Rémi Perez has a genuine passion for cuisine and his whole family united to purchase this beautiful, semi-circular property and create 12 rooms, including six apartments with kitchens set above the two restaurants, a bistronomic eatery and a tapas bar.
THREE-STAR: Greet Hotel Marseille – Parc Chanot Vélodrome
Opened March 2025
This is the Accor brand’s third Greet Hotel in Marseille, focusing on sustainability and solo travel, as well as families. The 14m² optimised single rooms are air-conditioned and soundproofed, just five minutes’ walk from the Orange Vélodrome Stadium on Boulevard Rabatau, opposite the Parc Chanot exhibition space and four bus stops from the beaches. It’s efficient, welcoming and eco-friendly.
ECO DOMAIN: Lou Calen, Cotignac
Final rooms opened June 2024
After a long period of closure, Lou Calen has undergone a spectacular renaissance and now stands out for its commitment to eco-responsibility and desire to create a synergy with the local terroir. There are 36 guest bedrooms, nestled in the glorious gardens or overlooking the village square. Restaurant Le Jardin Secret has been awarded a Michelin green star for its inventive cuisine, while the hotel offers a more casual dining experience at Le Bistrot (2024), a craft microbrewery making local beer and a pastis bar (also 2024) offering over 80 varieties of aniseed.
HOSTEL: Slo Hostel, Nice
Opened March 2024
Following Slo Hostels’ success in Lyon, the group have turned this Art-Deco building with wrought iron balconies into a new-generation youth hostel in Nice’s Notre-Dame quarter, 10 minutes’ walk from the station and the sea. The clientele mainly consists of families and groups sharing rooms with bathrooms, plus solo travellers and friends sharing dorms for four to 10 people. Guests enjoy an organic breakfast buffet, on-site events, exhibitions, concerts and a thrift shop – and the hostel is set to obtain the Mediterranean Sustainable Building label.
CAMPSITE: Estérel Caravaning, Saint-Raphaël
New VIP suite opening 2025
On 19 hectares between the rocky Estérel Massif and the sea sits this five-star campsite, boasting 495 pitches – 331 mobile homes and 164 pitches for campers and caravans – including plots equipped with private spas, plus five pools and a water park. New for 2025 is VIP Bali, a new 500 m² accommodation suite with three mobile homes, private hot tub, seven-metre private pool and panoramic mountain views.
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