Saint-Paul-de-Mausole and the Glanum olive groves

Ten minutes down from Les Baux, on the road out of Saint-Rémy toward the Alpilles, three things sit within a few hundred metres of each other. Saint-Paul-de-Mausole is a Romanesque monastery with a small, warm-stoned cloister where Van Gogh was a patient for a year and painted from his window; the field behind the wall is the wheat field from those paintings, and the lavender and olive plantings around the buildings are kept in that spirit. Across the road, the Roman arch and mausoleum of Glanum stand free in open ground, visible without a ticket, with the Alpilles ridge behind them.

The cloister is the intimate frame — arcades, warm stone, planted beds — and it is small and still a working care institution, so it asks for a quiet, short session rather than a production. Outside, the olive terraces and the cypress lines are the Provence everybody pictures, and they take late afternoon light beautifully.

Both sites keep posted hours and the monastery charges admission; the Roman monuments outside can be photographed at any hour, which makes them the sunrise option. Parking is a small lot between the two, and it fills on weekends and through the spring.