Where to go in France in April?
The 15 best destinations for a trip to France in April, ranked on the weather actually recorded.
For a trip to France in April, we kept regions and cities in metropolitan France during their best season. Temperatures and rainfall are real records, averaged from 2015 to 2024 at each destination's reference point, and the sea is measured at the nearest coastal point. 15 destinations pass this filter. Top of the ranking: The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence (20 °C in the afternoon, 5 days of rain).
The ranking at a glance
| # | Destination | Afternoon | Rainy days | Sea (°C) | Budget |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇫🇷 The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence | 20 °C | 5 | - | €100-180 a day |
| 2 | 🇫🇷 Avignon | 19 °C | 6 | - | €80-150 a day, bien plus en juillet |
| 3 | 🇫🇷 Montpellier | 19 °C | 7 | 15 °C | €70-140 a day |
| 4 | 🇫🇷 Aix-en-Provence | 18 °C | 7 | - | €90-160 a day |
| 5 | 🇫🇷 The Camargue | 18 °C | 7 | 14 °C | €80-130 a day |
| 6 | 🇫🇷 Tarn-et-Garonne | 19 °C | 8 | - | €65-110 a day |
| 7 | 🇫🇷 The Vézère Valley | 20 °C | 9 | - | €75-130 a day |
| 8 | 🇫🇷 Carcassonne | 18 °C | 10 | - | €60-120 a day |
| 9 | 🇫🇷 Marseille | 17 °C | 6 | 15 °C | €80-160 a day |
| 10 | 🇫🇷 The Luberon | 17 °C | 7 | - | €90-150 a day |
| 11 | 🇫🇷 Tours | 17 °C | 7 | - | €60-120 a day |
| 12 | 🇫🇷 Versailles | 16 °C | 8 | - | €80-160 a day |
| 13 | 🇫🇷 Lyon | 17 °C | 9 | - | €90-160 a day |
| 14 | 🇫🇷 Mougins | 17 °C | 9 | - | €110-200 a day |
| 15 | 🇫🇷 The Loire Valley | 16 °C | 9 | - | €90-140 a day |
The 15 destinations in detail
Region1 🇫🇷 The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence
🌡️ 20 °C in the afternoon, 5 days of rain · 💶 €100-180 a day
The Alpilles are a range of white limestone as long as a day's bike ride, between Arles and Avignon. On its slopes stand a citadel dismantled by Richelieu at Les Baux, a quarry where Picasso is projected onto the rock, the ancient city of Glanum, the cloister where Van Gogh painted his irises, and mills that press the olives.
City2 🇫🇷 Avignon
🌡️ 19 °C in the afternoon, 6 days of rain · 💶 €80-150 a day, bien plus en juillet
Seven popes ruled from Avignon between 1309 and 1377, leaving behind the largest Gothic palace in the world and more than four kilometres of ramparts still intact around the centre. Since 1947, the city has led a double life for three weeks every July, when the Festival and its Off turn every courtyard, chapel and garage into a theatre.
City3 🇫🇷 Montpellier
🌡️ 19 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain, sea at 15 °C · 💶 €70-140 a day
Montpellier has neither a Roman past nor a port: founded in the 10th century around a spice-trading post, it built its reputation on its faculty of medicine, the oldest still operating in the Western world. Today it is a young city, entirely pedestrianised in its medieval heart, with the sea about fifteen kilometres away and five tram lines to get you closer.
Region4 🇫🇷 Aix-en-Provence
🌡️ 18 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €90-160 a day
Aix has lived on a reservoir of hot water ever since the Romans founded Aquae Sextiae here in 122 BC, and today it has around a hundred fountains, some of which still flow at 34°C. It is also Cézanne's city, where his studio, the Bibémus quarries and his family home can all be visited within a few kilometres of each other.
Region5 🇫🇷 The Camargue
🌡️ 18 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain, sea at 14 °C · 💶 €80-130 a day
Between the two arms of the Rhône, the Camargue is a flat land where the sky takes up all the space. You drive between rice fields and sansouïres, a flight of pink flamingos lands in front of you, a gardian rides past with his trident and black bulls graze in the marsh.
Region6 🇫🇷 Tarn-et-Garonne
🌡️ 19 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain · 💶 €65-110 a day
Between the Garonne, the Tarn and the Aveyron, this small département packs in Moissac's Romanesque cloister, Ingres's drawings in Montauban, the Bruniquel castles and the cliffs of the Aveyron gorges. Add the bastides of the Lomagne, Auvillar and its round market hall, and the hatmakers of Caussade.
Region7 🇫🇷 The Vézère Valley
🌡️ 20 °C in the afternoon, 9 days of rain · 💶 €75-130 a day
Over some forty kilometres between Montignac and Les Eyzies, the Vézère gathers fifteen UNESCO-listed prehistoric sites. You see the bulls of Lascaux recreated at Lascaux IV, the painted bison of Font-de-Gaume, one of the last decorated caves still open, and cliffs inhabited until the 16th century.
City8 🇫🇷 Carcassonne
🌡️ 18 °C in the afternoon, 10 days of rain · 💶 €60-120 a day
Carcassonne plays out as two towns separated by the Aude: a fortress of 52 towers rebuilt by Viollet-le-Duc on its hill, and a 13th-century grid-plan bastide that almost nobody crosses. The first receives nearly two million visitors a year; the second has the covered market, shady terraces and normal prices.
City9 🇫🇷 Marseille
🌡️ 17 °C in the afternoon, 6 days of rain, sea at 15 °C · 💶 €80-160 a day
France's second city, Marseille sits in an amphitheatre of limestone hills open to the Mediterranean, between a Vieux-Port that is still a working harbour and twenty kilometres of calanques reachable by city bus. It is a city that makes no effort to please, with its tired façades, its noisy markets and a light that redeems everything around 6pm.
Region10 🇫🇷 The Luberon
🌡️ 17 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €90-150 a day
The Luberon is a long mountain stretching between Cavaillon and Manosque, and above all the string of hilltop villages that gaze at it from the hills opposite: Gordes and its honey-coloured stone houses, Roussillon in red and orange on its ochre cliffs, Bonnieux, Ménerbes, Lacoste.
City11 🇫🇷 Tours
🌡️ 17 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €60-120 a day
Tours is a Loire city on a human scale: half-timbered houses around Place Plumereau, 13th-century stained glass at Saint-Gatien, Mantegna at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the tomb of Saint Martin, rillettes and Vouvray on a café terrace, and the gardens of Villandry 15 km away.
City12 🇫🇷 Versailles
🌡️ 16 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain · 💶 €80-160 a day
Versailles is Louis XIV's palace, but also a town to live in. The Hall of Mirrors and the Musical Fountains Show in the morning, Trianon and the Queen's Hamlet in the afternoon, then dinner in the Notre-Dame quarter in the evening, a quarter of an hour by train from Paris.
City13 🇫🇷 Lyon
🌡️ 17 °C in the afternoon, 9 days of rain · 💶 €90-160 a day
Lyon layers 2,000 years of history between its two rivers: the Roman theatres of Fourvière, the Renaissance lanes of Vieux Lyon and the secret traboules of the Croix-Rousse silk workers. A world capital of gastronomy, it is best savoured in its quenelle-serving bouchons and at Les Halles Paul Bocuse, before a green break in the Parc de la Tête d'Or. A dense, gourmet city that is surprisingly walkable.
City14 🇫🇷 Mougins
🌡️ 17 °C in the afternoon, 9 days of rain · 💶 €110-200 a day
Picasso spent the last twelve years of his life in Mougins, in a farmhouse that remains private and cannot be visited. Only the neighbouring chapel is open. On the museum front, things have changed: the Museum of Classical Art has closed and since 2024 the building has housed the FAMM, devoted to women artists.
Region15 🇫🇷 The Loire Valley
🌡️ 16 °C in the afternoon, 9 days of rain · 💶 €90-140 a day
Along the Loire, a river that has stayed largely wild, the French Renaissance scattered its masterpieces: Chambord's double-helix staircase, Chenonceau spanning the Cher, the embroidered gardens of Villandry. You pedal from one château to the next along the Loire's banks, between Vouvray vineyards and troglodyte villages. An hour from Paris, a UNESCO-listed concentrate of the good life.
Frequently asked questions
Where to go in France in April?
The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence, Avignon, Montpellier, Aix-en-Provence and The Camargue top our ranking for a trip to France in April. In first place, The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence: 20 °C in the afternoon, 5 days of rain on average over 2015-2024.
Which is the closest destination in France in April?
Versailles, about 0h15 by air from Paris, with 16 °C in the afternoon, 8 days of rain in April.
Where does it rain least in April among these destinations?
The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence: 5 days of rain on average in April, with 20 °C in the afternoon.
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