A day in Aix-en-Provence

October 21, 2018

A great town and nearing the end of our trip as we plan our last days

Blue skies this morning as we left our hotel to explore Aix-en -Provence. Our hotel was just beyond the old town and we retraced our steps from the previous day to Place Richelme. Last night it was chock-a-block full of restaurant tables, chairs, umbrellas, heaters, cords and PEOPLE but today they were all gone. It was now a full market with various stalls throughout. Quite an amazing transformation!

Place Richelme set up with market stalls.

We were on a mission to find Pat a breakfast with eggs and found ourselves back on Cours Mirabeau. This street divides Aix into two portions, the quartier Mazarin or "new town", and the Ville comtale, or "old town", which lies to the north with its wide but irregular streets. The north side of the street was lined with restaurants with outside eating areas that bask in the sun all day. We passed on a restaurant with omelettes for 21 euros which we thought was a bit pricy for an egg fix. Instead we settled on a continental breakfast with bacon and eggs which included coffee and juice for only 10 euros. Delicious!

As it is Sunday, many shops in Aix are closed so it is a relatively quiet day on the streets. Nice for walking about but it is very noticeable that Aix is under going a significant transformation with muliple construction projects all going on at the same time. But looking past the disruption and rubble, you can see that it is still a great place to visit. Much of the new development seems to have a focus on removing car traffic in favour of public transit, improved cycling infrastrucure and making things more pedestrian friendly. All good in our opinion!

The beautiful Fontaine de la Rotonde at one end of the Cours Mirabeau being updated.

The extent of construction is shown here.

We have decided to travel on to Nimes tomorrow by bus. Our time is getting short as we must return to Avignon to get our bike suitcases and then take a train for flights home out of Geneva. We thought it would be nice to see some of the area west of the Rhone and therefore begin our ride back to Avignon from Nimes. Today we also wanted to locate where the Flixbus departs from. We made our way to a brand new bus facility but it seemed to be for local buses and decided the location we wanted would be better reached on our bikes.

The afternoon reconnaissance ride went well and we enjoyed a late afternoon beer on Cour Mirabeau. All in all we enjoyed our day in Aix-en- Provence

A really great family ride set up. One goes up front and one in the tailer. We are sorry to have missed their departure.

Cours Mirabeau. Note the new trees planted on the sides. The streetscape has lost over 30 plane trees due to disease. Some were 150 years old.

Parking can be tight and these poor plane trees appear to take a beating.

A wonderful place for an afternoon beer and wine in the sun.

A military walk though. We did not see a strong presence but I guess they are around.

Pretty buildings in the late afternoon sun.

The clock tower origins date back to the 14th century.

Our short ride back to our hotel at the end of the day.

Today's ride: 5 km (3 miles)
Total: 845 km (525 miles)

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