Andre and Wendy: Aix-en-Provence

Today we are off on a adventure to Aix-En-Provence, or what everyone here calls it Aix (Pronounced Ex)

When we booked this trip to France Andre debated between a month in Aix or a month in Avignon. The big difference is it is much easier to travel from Avignon than it is from Aix, so he picked Avignon. When we first arrived my impression was I wish he had picked Aix, by the afternoon I was thank goodness we are in Avignon. Aix is absolutely beautiful, but oh the tourists. Yes, we are one of the many tourists, but lots and lots of lollipops being followed, and it isn't even real tourist season yet. So glad we spent a month in Avignon, but we certainly could have easily spent a couple of days in Aix and been very happy.

First stop is the tourist information centre to get maps. They have a map of Aix for us, as well as 3 other maps showing routes for Paul Cezanne, fountains, and doors. The 4 crossed over quite a few places, but we did give up after a short while on trying to match the 4 maps together. They did have little brass markers on the sidewalks to follow the Paul Cezanne route that we came across often. We were a little disappointed that they didn't have more write ups and pictures along the route from Paul Cezanne, like they did for Van Gogh in other places we visited. Another disappointment was the studio where Cezanne spent the end of his life closed on April 1 for renovations for I think a year, so we missed out on that. You can certainly see where Cezanne would have lots of inspiration for his painting coming from here, and we didn't even make it into the mountains where he based a lot of his work on. Next time....

Aix is more hilly that we had thought, and also much bigger. For some reason I thought we were going to a much smaller town, but it was still very walkable, nothing like Marseille earlier this week. Lots of small cobblestone walking streets which led to many squares that normally had a fountain and lots of little outdoor restaurants to choose from. Aix is known for its fountains, and there sure were lots of them, very beautiful.

We also had our first Madeleines (the famous shell shaped cookie) treats this trip from Christophe Madeleines. I had forgotten this was on our list to see, but a lineup outside made me remember. We think the first time we have ever tried them. They only sell them it batches of 6 or a dozen, we chose 6 which were very quickly finished. Lemon, orange and almond, so yummy.

Andre loves doors, lots of great opportunities for door photography here.

We took the bus here, the most expensive day trip we have done so far at 23 Euro return per person, it was about the same price by train but it took much longer because of transfers, so bus it was. The quick bus is able to take the paid toll road. When we went to the bus station to return to Avignon he said that people with reservations could get on first, we had no idea there was a reservation system available, we could have gone any day we wanted within 3 months with our ticket. So, luckily the bus was not full and we had no problems getting home, we will need to remember this if we book more trips in our next 3 cities we visit. The next bus would have been 4 hours later. I guess we could have gone to eat and wander some more.

Soup and salad for supper, another walk around Avignon old town streets which we hadn't done for a while then call it a night. Time is winding down here, we move on on Monday, hard to believe another month has gone by already.

Steps today 18,000 or 11 km

Paul Cezanne statue