Aix-En-Provence (1)

I watched the television series, then I saw for myself...

Much as I enjoyed John Thaw as Peter Mayle in "A Year In Provence", I had no idea where Provence actually was (somewhere in France...) or that Avignon was in Provence. I was on the TGV earlier this year when I found from the train announcement that after Avignon the next stop was Aix-En-Provence. That it was close to the Mediterranean coast was another surpise. I was quite unprepared for the sunlight on old buildings, the climate, the beautiful countryside, the food, or the local wines. Every wine area I have been to is the same: they don't export the stuff they want to drink themselves. But the wines of the Rhône valley have all the potential of the great river itself, wide and meandering with a hidden power in its strong currents.

Avignon captivated me. Getting a really cheap deal from Eurostar helped, and the TGV is a great way to travel, the double-decker trains racing through the hills and vinyards, past farms, villages, rivers and mountains at an average speed of 158 mph, and smoothly enough not to spill your drinks. I enjoyed the look of the old city, of standing on the famous bridge about which, as a child, I had learned to sing. And because the papacy had moved there from Rome from 1305 to 1377 and the papal palace had been preserved, it was also full of history. And I ate well, and got seriously chilled in what was really a very short stay.

So, getting wound up over various things and remembering the lesson of my surgery that life is for living, I set off again, to do that extra stop on the TGV - Aix-En-Provence. Once again, the TGV, but this time no Eurostar Special Offer. It was cold and wet when I left St Pancras International at lunchtime. Arriving at Aix in the early evening it was just dark and still warm.

I don't quite know how it works: I originally experienced it when I first went to Texas nearly 20 years ago. Somehow as I got off the plane I seemed to have room to expand. Maybe it was the big expanse of sky, maybe it has something to do with the attitude of the people. Perhaps back then it had something to do with circumstance. I remember at a particularly dark time in my life, on my own just north of Chicago, sitting outside a Starbucks and feeling free of boundaries, feeling that I had room and the opportunity to be me and put down the load I was carrying. Provence has the same effect. From the TGV station, several kilometers south of the city, the night sky was better than any I have seen in Northamptonshire, and I expanded to fill some extra room that had appeared around me.

Before leaving I had downloaded instructions to find the transit bus to the town centre, and of course, there it wasn't. But just then a fellow traveller was met in the car park and greeted in English, so I asked if they knew where the transit stop was. Two Australians! One living in Aix, the other visiting, and from that the offer of a lift to the street I needed and some interesting chat about Aix, and the inability to tune to a satellite TV station showing cricket.

Cours Mirabeau

So 15 minutes later I was standing on the wide expanse of Cours Mirabeau, amid trees, the pedestrians, the halting traffic: it's a wide street, but traffic is restricted to a narrow central lane down which speed, progress even, is not far short of impossible. Pavement cafés thronged with customers, and my hotel was easy to find.

Honoré, Comte de Mirabeau, was a leading, and controversial, figure in the French Revolution, and born in Aix-En-Provence. The first to be buried in the pantheon, he was also the first to have h‎is bones removed elsewhere! I would have loved to find a Mirabeau Museum, but there isn't one. Nor did I meet anyone with whom I could discuss the town's famous son. Was he a traitor to the revolution, or a practical man who saw a different future to some of the other leaders? What would have happened if Louis XVI had listened to his advice? Would France have become a constitutional monarchy and the Terror avoided? There is no statue of him in the avenue that bears his name. At one end is a memorial of the 15th century King René, and at the other is the Place Charles de Gaul. There is a square named after the French Resistance fighters who died in World War II, but I found nothing commemorating the Revolution that changed European history and gave the continent the concept of individual rights and the idea that government is responsible to the people. So that was a disappointment.

Rooftops of Aix from my hotel room.

In general, I found Aix-En-Provence to be less interesting than Avignon - it is less aware of its history. But on the other hand, it is more pleasing on the eye. Walking round the old city reveals another interesting, eye-catching, vista on just about every turn. And if Aix has forgotten Mirabeau, it has another favourite son, Paul Cézanne. Cézanne and his friend Emil Zola were both born, and educated, in Aix-En-Provence. There is not much evidence that I saw of Zola. But there is Cézanne everywhere. Hotels named after him, streets named after him, prints of his paintings, a tour of the sites of some of his famous landscape paintings, and the house where he lived and worked for the last years of his life.

Atelier Paul Cézanne is found by leaving the old city on the north side. I decided to walk - it was a warm day and I wanted to enjoy just being in the South of France. Cézanne is sometimes called the painter's painter, with an implication that some of his work is less popular with the public. I am not educated in art, but I love his work. His paintings are in the great collections world wide. So I did not expect to find much in a small museum in Aix. The house, which is set in trees off the road out of Aix, on a hill overlooking the city, manages visitor's expectations in this respect. As you approach the door you are told that in this house you will not find any of Cézanne's paintings - his spirit is here. And because there is not a lot of room inside, people are admitted a few at a time. As there were already a couple of family groups hanging around the door I moved past the house to a small building with a large video screen where a presentation was playing with readings from the artist's papers and many of his paintings: a few self portraits, some still life, and some of those great expansive landscapes. I sat and watched. Then a second showing began and I listened, finding my French was good enough to make sense of most of it. So after a brief walk round the grounds I returned to the house. I had in mind the shop I had spotted by the door, and hopefully a copy of the DVD presentation - maybe even in English.

Now I found I had made a mistake. Outside the house was a large group of Japanese tourists, so large it was hard to get near the door. But I managed it, and squeezed my way inside. The notice about "a few at a time" had been ignored. The house was swarming with Japanese. It was hard even to turn round in the throng. I managed with difficulty to edge into the shop. The selection of books, insofar as I could get near it, was poor, and the DVD was not on offer. I had a choice: I could fight my way to the counter, buy a ticket, and struggle through the melée, or I could wait until the mass left, or I could give up. I was in hassle-free mode, so I left and returned to the city. Another disappointment.

But not so much: I didn't expect to see Cézanne's major works. I had hoped to see his studio, but did not expect it to have the aura of Darwin's study. And I had seen the really good presentation, twice in fact. Lunch beckoned.