Culture, Cafes, and Cezanne in Aix-en-Provence

A favorite spot for many visitors to Provence is the lovely city of Aix-en-Provence, the center of which is its beautiful tree-lined street, the Cours Mirabeau. The town’s name is often shortened to just “Aix,” which is pronounced just like the letter “X.” When someone does say the full name, it sounds like they’re saying “Exxon Provence.”

Like many cities and towns around Provence, Aix started as an ancient Roman colony, although it doesn’t have as many Roman ruins as some other towns. An interesting thing we learned was that there would be more Roman ruins in existence today if people over the centuries hadn’t used the Roman structures as quarries -- in other words, people in, say, the Middle Ages would cannibalize the ancient Roman structures for their limestone and use it to build newer buildings.

Our walking tour started on the famed Cours Mirabeau. “Cours” means a wide avenue, and this one is named for Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, marquis of Mirabeau, who was a key figure in the French Revolution. Lining the Cours Mirabeau are large plane trees -- what we in the U.S. call sycamores -- which, when they touch, make the avenue look almost like a tunnel. When we were there the trees had recently been trimmed, so we didn’t get the tunnel effect, but the avenue was beautiful nonetheless. On either side of the street are handsome townhouses from the 17th and 18th century, as well as cafes and shops. Some of the townhouses have a face sculpted in stone -- a person or a lion, perhaps -- over the doorway. Our guide mentioned that sometimes these conveyed a particular meaning: For example, if the owner didn’t like their neighbors, the stone face over the door might have its tongue sticking out.

One of Aix’s claims to fame is that the painter Paul Cezanne was born and spent much of his life here. Our walking tour took us past the junior high school where Cezanne spent four years, the College Auguste Mignet. While there, Cezanne made friends with a classmate named Emile Zola, who would later become a respected French novelist. The two would stay friends for years -- until Zola made the mistake of writing a novel in which the central character was a failed artist. Cezanne suspected that Zola was referring to him, and he broke off the friendship.

Among the other sights we saw on our stroll through town:

--The Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, or Museum of Natural History, which sports a few dinosaur eggs.

--A monument commemorating the liberation of France on Aug. 15, 1944. Most of us know about the U.S. forces that landed in Normandy on June 6 of that year, but there also were U.S. forces who landed later on the beaches at St-Tropez, in the south of France, and moved north to Aix and the rest of Provence. Several of the people over here have told us how grateful the French are to the Americans for our country's role in World War II. One of our lecturers told us, “Without you, I would not be free.”

--The Cathedrale St-Sauveur, which has a baptistry dating to 400 A.D. as well as some very old stained-glass windows. Original stained-glass windows are rare in Provence because of the powerful Mistral wind and the damage it can cause.

--The 600-year-old University of Aix-Marseille III. Today it is almost as big as Penn State’s University Park campus -- 40,000 students -- and is a popular spot for students in Study Abroad programs.

--Shops selling sweet treats called calissons, or calissons d’Aix. A confectionery that has been made for more than 400 years, a calisson contains almonds, candied fruits, and marzipan, among other ingredients.

Some of the travelers opted to explore Aix on their own. Joady Gorelick, a Penn Stater from California who runs a business supplying needleworkers and costumers, headed over to the Musee des Tapisseries to see the 17th and 18th century tapestries and the opera and stage costumes from the 20th century.

After re-boarding the bus and leaving Aix, we headed off to lunch at a restaurant at the base of Mont St-Victoire, a mountain made famous by Cezanne, who loved it and painted it from many angles. He painted at least 60 paintings of Mont St-Victoire. We ate at a lovely restaurant and winery in the village of Relais-St-Ser, where we supplemented our country lunch with local red, white, and rose wines. (There is never a shortage of wine at meals in France.) Then we got back on the bus and headed for the Cote d’Azur, or the French Riviera. For the next five days we’ll be based in Nice. Stay tuned for dispatches from our adventures there.

Photos

The Penn State travelers visited Aix-en-Provence's Cathedrale St-Sauveur, which has a fifth-century baptistry, visible on the right-hand side of this photo.

Elegant townhouses line the main street in the town of Aix-en-Provence.

The university in Aix-en-Provence is one of France's largest, enrolling 40,000 students.

You often can find a small statue of a saint on the corner of a building in Aix-en-Provence.

Many of the old townhouses in Aix-en-Provence have a fancy -- and often humorous -- stone face over the doorway.