Writer Melissa Rossi was nearly giddy at the idea of finally heading to Provence—a rolling land of lush vineyards, hilltop villages and the walled city of Avignon. Best known historically as the home to nine popes dodging political turmoil in 14th-century Rome, Avignon is quaint but not the sort of city that amuses for days, unless you’re lucky or smart enough to be there for the July theater festival.

“Um, not to be rude,” Rossi asked at the tourist bureau, “but why do people come to Avignon?” Actual answer: They stay here to go to other places. To Seguret, a tiny stone village with fingers of red-fringed ivy creeping up walls, fields of gold-flecked green below, and grapes draped from arbors. To St. Remy, where Nostradamus was born and van Gogh lived. To Baux, where the surrounding terrain is ruggedly beautiful, and where she happened upon a stunning autumn-tinged vineyard with Roman ruins rising behind it.