Autumn 2022
Discover Aix, the ‘Little Paris’ of Provence, the historic region of Beaune, a land of wine and castles. Beautiful Bordeaux and Normandy. The stork villages of Alsace and the pickled-in-the-past, post-card pretty perched town of Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert. Breath-taking Lavender fields in Provence, castles in the air in Dordogne. Exquisite Villefranche-sur-Mer and Nice. Discover what’s new, the best tours, recipes, a language lesson, practical guides and much, much more…
Discover Aix, the ‘Little Paris’ of Provence, the historic region of Beaune, a land of wine and castles. Beautiful Bordeaux and Normandy. The stork villages of Alsace and the pickled-in-the-past, post-card pretty perched town of Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert. Breath-taking Lavender fields in Provence, castles in the air in Dordogne. Exquisite Villefranche-sur-Mer and Nice. Discover what’s new, the best tours, recipes, a language lesson, practical guides and much, much more…
- No tags were found...
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
The old district<br />
You’ll find a warren of cobbled streets,<br />
elegant squares and magnificent ancient<br />
buildings in the old district. There’s a lively<br />
daily market in Place Richelme, shaded by<br />
ancient plane trees, lined with cafés whose<br />
chairs and tables spill into the square,<br />
and stalls peddling local produce such as<br />
lavender, bread, cheese, mountains of the<br />
freshest vegetables, great tubs of sunflowers<br />
and curtains of garlic…<br />
In Place de l’Hotel de Ville you’ll find a<br />
Saturday morning flower market watched over<br />
by a 15th century astronomical clock featuring<br />
characters representing the four seasons.<br />
Locals say one year <strong>Autumn</strong> lasted 4 months<br />
when someone forgot to turn the key!<br />
In a city that is nicknamed ‘town of 1000<br />
fountains’, elegant Place d’Albertas stands out<br />
for its truly beautiful baroque buildings and<br />
central fountain. You can walk your socks off<br />
in Aix and never be bored.<br />
Cours Mirabeau was named in honour of Honoré-Gabriel Riquetti de Mirabeau an early leader in the<br />
French Revolutionist and who represented Aix at the Estates General assembly in 1789.<br />
The Mazarin District<br />
The Mazarin district is named after the<br />
Archbishop of Aix, Michel Mazarin, brother of<br />
Cardinal Mazarin, chief minister to Louis XIV.<br />
He commissioned the extension of the city’s<br />
boundaries in the 1600s. The buildings from<br />
this time are luxurious and majestic. Elsewhere<br />
there are traces of older buildings where<br />
you can spot ancient carvings above doors,<br />
religious statues on corners and the Maltese<br />
cross carved into walls.<br />
Arty Aix<br />
Aix’s most famous son is Paul Cezanne.<br />
Every morning at dawn, he would walk from<br />
his city apartment up the hill to his studio<br />
to paint. When he died in 1906, the studio<br />
was preserved and is now open to the public.<br />
The objects we see in his paintings are still<br />
there, the three skulls which are real, though<br />
no one knows who they are – anonymously<br />
immortalized. The statue of a cherub, the<br />
bottles and vases he loved to group together.<br />
His brushes and paints, his smock coat and<br />
hat and his Godin fire are all there. You really<br />
do get the feeling the artist has popped out to<br />
wander in his gorgeous garden or to look at his<br />
beloved Mont Saint-Victoire, the subject of so<br />
many of his paintings. (atelier-cezanne.com)<br />
You can find out more about Cezanne at the<br />
Caumont Art Centre, a corker of a museum<br />
in an 18th century mansion a stone’s throw<br />
from the Cours in the Mazarin District where<br />
they show a 20-minute film about the life of<br />
Cezanne that is surprisingly grown up and<br />
doesn’t sugar coat his story (neither modest<br />
nor particularly likeable by all accounts). The<br />
museum has a super exhibition of sculptures<br />
and paintings including by several great<br />
names such as Monet, Van Gogh, Degas and<br />
many more outstanding artists, plus stunningly<br />
preserved rooms.<br />
Don’t miss the ground floor café (you don’t<br />
need a ticket to enter) – it is gorgeous with<br />
glorious salons which feel as though nothing<br />
has changed in the last 300 years, and a<br />
No 38 the oldest private mansion on Cours Mirabeau, built before the street was even laid out –<br />
it’s impressive wooden door is flanked by two stop-you-in-your-tracks-to-admire muscular figures<br />
Cezanne's studio<br />
10 | The Good Life France The Good Life France | 11