Today we say good bye to our friends in the morning. They are going to remain in the Saint Tropez area for a few more days before returning to Switzerland while we do have to return to the US and to our jobs. And the return flight is in Lyon so a ways away. We have decided to break the drive with a stop and it can be either Aix en Provence or Avignon and after some back and forth we settle on Aix. The drive there is busy but uneventful and we find parking easily near the downtown area. And then it is time to explore the narrow streets while trying to hide from the heat that didn’t let up throughout our visit.
As usual we take our time to enjoy the many old houses along the way with many interesting beautiful shutters, typical of the Provencal houses. Some are better maintained and some are less but all them are rustic looking.
Another thing quite common here are the fountains, there are many interesting and quite varied ones. We really like the Four Dolphin fountain with the dolphins surrounding it but unfortunately nowhere there is water flowing including here.
As we reach the downtown area we explore it carefully looking now for restaurant to eat lunch. Given the short time that lunch is served in France we have limited time to find one and we search the many streets looking for something open.
We finally find one restaurant barely open, it actually did close right after we entered. But at least they took our order, one appetizer and a couple of main courses.
The food is quite good and at least we don’t have to hurry, while it closed for lunch it is still open for drinks and coffee and there is a healthy amount of tourists and locals coming in while we are eating.
Refreshed it is time again to explore and the next stop is a smaller but surprisingly popular church, the Church of the Holy Spirit. Here there is a person that is even singing on the organ, quite special, it is not something that we encounter often.
The church is decorated in typical Catholic excess and we enjoy looking at all the details as we explore it thoroughly before exiting again into the heat.
We now make our way, slowly, towards the cathedral passing quaint squares and interesting buildings. This area, a bit removed from the central boulevard, is less busy which is something we enjoy. Not empty but less busy which is how we like it.
In fact some of the streets are completely empty at least for a few minutes while we take photos which is something we didn’t imagine we can find in Aix,. And these streets are quite beautiful too.
We arrive at the cathedral, which is described separately, and explore the surrounding area which has some beautiful doors. That includes the cathedral of course which has an impressive iron adorned door.
There are also quite a few beautiful houses around, many of them related to the cathedral like the Archbishop’s Palace which is really similar to a noble’s house as you would expect.
Now it is time to start on our way back to the parking lot passing through the center of the town which lies around the huge and impressive town hall. Which is next to another beautiful building, the former Corn Exchange. No stocks here just corn trades.
And then we catch the first glimpse of the famous clock tower, it is a bit disappointing as it is not really something that special in our opinion. But the main throughfare is surrounded by many other beautiful buildings and interesting stores that more than make up for it.
We soon enter the Central Square in front of the City Hall and anchored by the Corn Exchange where we spend some time taking photos and just enjoying the views with the throng of people doing the same thing in the middle of the town.
One of the interesting details in Aix, that we have also seen in other European cities, are the many doors guarded by two nearly naked statues. Usually the hold up a balcony but not always. This seems to have all the rage at some point, probably in the early 20th century, but now it is a bit weird really.
The last major stop in Aix is the beautiful Place d’Albertas. It is surrounded by some special yellow buildings and in the middle is a beautiful fountain that surprisingly has water flowing, no other fountain here had water flowing. And then it is straight back to the parking, we still have a long way in front of us.
The road is quite busy today but we arrive at the Lyon airport around 9PM so reasonably enough and then drop off the car. Which means parking the car on the street and dropping the key in a box after which it cannot be accessed. We are not sure what would happen if the car is hit before a worker looks at it tomorrow but it seems that didn’t happen as we received the all clear the next day.
Tonight we stay in a hotel right in the airport, it is a good enough hotel with nice views over the airport. However we just go to sleep as the plane leaves quite early the next day.
In the morning we make our way to the terminal and check in. The flights are uneventful and “soon” we are back in Phoenix after quite an eventful trip where we met 3 groups of people and visited impressive Madeira and a beautiful part of France that we haven’t seen before.
