Provence Hotel
We're looking for a 2 or 3 star hotel in the Mirabeau section of Aix-en-Provence for 4 days next May. Alas, Rick doesn't have any information about Aix in his 2012 France guidebook. We'll have a car, thus parking availability is important. I've read the positive responses about the St. Remy area, but we'd prefer centrally located Aix so we'd have the evenings in a more lively area. We'd really appreciate any help you can provide.
Karen
Reading 10/18/12
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Try booking.com and look at photos and read reviews from people who have recently stayed in the hotels listed. You can sort by several combinations of options, including parking availability.
We stayed at the Hotel Cardinale. It was very French, on a side street; it had the original doors from what must have been around 1850, very interesting. The place is decorated with dubious art from the original owner; staff nice; didn't eat breakfast so don't know about that; bathrooms good; bed so-so. Would stay again; it was cheap, around 60 euros, and not Best Western.
I second Nancy's Hotel Cardinale. We stayed there about 8 years ago and loved it.
Karen, Rick covers Aix in his Provence & the French Riviera book.
Over the years we have stayed at the Hôtel des Quatre Dauphins (1999), Hôtel le Manoir (2007) (but they won't take reservations till the 1 February for the spring) and Hôtel des Augustins (2010). Enjoyed them all but prefer le Manoir even though it doesn't have air conditioning. Breakfast at des Augustins was the best. 2013 we'll be at Négre Coste for the first time but that's because I didn't want to wait till February to reserve since friends are going with us and we wanted air conditioning.
Thanks so very, very much for your most helpful replies. We got busy and now we're booked at the Hotel Cardinale! I should have known Rick would have a Provence & Riviera book. I'm on my way to purchase it. Thanks again!
What's not important is that the name of the hotel doesn't have an 'e' on the end, but the name of the street it's on does.
What's important is being able to get to it from the one-way ring road of a thousand names. What makes it worse is that most of the streets around the Cardinal are also one-way. Study a map. Get off the ring on the south side at Rue (something) Mistral, go a couple blocks and hook a left on Rue Cardinale. Try it any other way and your life is going to ebb away before you can get your head on a pillow.
Thanks for the driving tips, Ed. We'll keep your directions with the map that the Hotel Cardinal sent to us. We'll also have our GPS with us. The GPS was invaluable in Italy and I'm sure we'll find it very helpful in France, too. Thanks again!