Le cours Mirabeau looking towards the Fountaine de la Rotonde

One of the big cities to visit on our to do list was Aix-en-Provence. The city was founded in the 3rd century AD by the Romans. The buildings in the original town have been redeveloped continually until around the early part of the 20th century. As a consquence, unlike Arles and Nimes, there are no obvious ancient buildings and ruins to be seen. While the street layout probably follows ancient routes, the regeneration over time has been relatively thorough.

The population stands at around 150,000 and in another way, it also differs from Arles and Nimes in that it is very obviously a university town. Driving the short distance through the suburbs, the pavements were teeming with students, a refreshing contrast to other towns that we have visited, where the towns are both quieter and the average age of the populace feels much older.

The satnav brought us to Fountaine de la Rotonde at the southern end of the old town and indeed all roads into Aix seem to end up there. The fountain was built in 1860 and isn't as old at the many fountains to be found in Aix, but it is imposing. From the Rotonde, into the old town is the wide boulevard of le cours Mirabeau, which is mostly predestranised and the site of a weekly market. Apparently Aix hosts a market of some sort every day. In common with many of the squares in towns that we have visited in our part of Provence, it is also tree lined with Plane trees, which at this time of year are cropped down and bare, but surely provide effective cover in the Summer.

We visited the town three times within 8 days. The first trip was not particularly productive and we came to regard it as an exploratory trip. We left home late and as it is about an hour and a quarter to drive to from home, we arrived after 12pm. Not that bad, except that it then took us nearly an hour to find a car park that could take the height of our Batmotruck. Eventually, we found a 'park and ride' 5 minites from the old town and took the bus down to and around the peripheral road to the Fountaine de la Rotonde.

By this time we were famished and could have eaten anything. All day dining is not big here and McDs are mostly out of town, so if you have not booked or not stepped into a restaurant soon after 12pm, bad luck! However, we were fortunate to find an all day burger joint in a small street just off the Rotonde, which was cheap and good as I am sure all of the students also eating there will attest.

A few days later, on Saturday, we returned, much wiser, and with a lot more time to find a place for lunch. Pauline spotted oysters on display at an imposing restaurant in le cours Mirabeau called Les Deux Garcons. The food was quite good, but the service was a little indifferent. A little background reading revealed that it is reputedly owned by the Mafia and no photos are allowed in the restaurant. So I snuck one with my moblie phone.

Being Saturday, we were also able to catch the Saturday markets dotted around town, with dedicated areas for clothes, flowers, food and the Brocante (flea market). With incredible self-restraint, we nevertheless did not buy a thing.

We enjoyed walking around the picturesque old town and spent some time in the two sites of the Musée Granet on our visit, which hosts both temporary and permanent exhibitions. Frankly, in my not very humble opinion, the current temporary exhibitions of the works of Bernex and Cueco, I could do without, but the permanent exhibits - especiallly the collection donated by Jean Planque, including many 'modern' paintings by Picasso and Paul Klee plus Impressionists Renoir, Monet and Degas were very worthwhile.

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