We flew into Marseille and rented a car at the airport for the drive up to Domaine de Manville and to explore the area. We arrived on Thursday midday and left early on Monday. In truth we used the hire car to get to and from the airport only!!!!!!!!! The hotel has 2 luxury vehicles (Mercedes and Audi) to take guests to local attractions, villages, restaurants etc. We used the service to go up to the walled town / castle of Les Baux de Provence; to go to L'Oustau de Baumaniere for lunch (Twice!!!! It is awesome!). The on-demand service is free to nearer attractions and for a drop-off / collection in St. Remy (which is about a 20 minute drive) it was €40. The hotel will collect you at Marseille and return you there for €380 round trip.. With the benefit of hindsight, we need not have hired a car and we spent time in Les Baux and St. Remy - what we did not do was to spend a lot of time exploring the local countryside but that was the nature of our itinerary as part of a wedding weekend. Natasha, the FOH Manager is English by birth and is a delight; Louis, the Concierge, speaks very good English and it may be that they could advise you on local tours to take in sights, lavender fields etc. Did WE need to hire a car? I think the answer is no - but we had a lot of events to enjoy associated with the wedding that we were attending - and the Domaine is a delightful place to stay. Driving around country lanes is easy enough and, from what we saw, very pleasant!!!! We did not go to Arles or to Avignon - having visited these towns previously but if you want to spend time at these sites (and they are amazing) then a car may be a good thing. The more I think about it, if I have not been able to answer your questions correctly, I suggest that you drop a mail to Natasha Lattanzio at Domaine de Manville and tell her I said hi!!!!! I have provided a politician's answer - for which I apologise!!!!! Neither one thing nor the other.......please let me know if I can provide responses to your actual itinerary. Enjoy your stay ;-)