Aix-en-Provence

After the beautifully large city of Marseille, we went to a little tiny provincial town called Aix-en-Provence (Provence is the region it's in). Molly and I both decided that this was the town that Belle, from Beauty and the Beast, is from, about which she sings, "There must be more than this provincial life!" (This line was clearly sung throughout our entire visit there.) We stayed there for a few hours during the day, which was plenty of time to see the whole thing. We also ended up switching our train ticket to the next city to leave earlier, for two reasons. 1. We had run out of stuff to do. 2. There was nowhere in the city (or the train station) to leave our bags, so we were carrying a heavy backpack and/or duffel bag around the whole time. Regardless, Aix was a very quaint town. It boasts Paul Cezanne (the painter), so his face and name is everywhere, as well as a bunch of fountains (supposedly 1,000 of them!). There's not much talking (or writing, rather) that I can do about the town, so I'll just go ahead and show you a bunch of pictures of the sights we saw!

Our first destination, after realizing that there was nowhere to put our bags, was a farmers market that happens on one of the squares (I think every day?) to get some food. We walked around, then made some purchases and had a picnic at the next square over, sitting under a fountain right next to their Hotel de Ville, or city hall. Photo time to show off our yummy foods!

so much fromage!

The french don't sell strawberries until they're fresh/in season.
They are SO, SO good right now!

Olive bread & Goat cheese with parsley and garlic

our picnic!

After we ate, we walked around for the rest of our time there and saw some sites. Like I said, not much left to say about it, so here are the photos!

The biggest fountain among many

Cezanne plaque that lined the street. Like I said, everywhere!

Hotel de Ville

A random quaint window

A museum of some sort. I forget.
[Also, mooching off of Marseille's cultural
capital title with that sign!]

Institut d'Etudes Politiques
Their Political Science School, named the same thing
as ours in Lyon! (and presumably everywhere in France.)

IEP again

Cathedral

Old baths?

Monument in front of the baths

some tower. I forget its significance.

Train time! On to Avignon!

Voila, our day trip in photo form. Overall, Aix was a really cute city, like I said. It was definitely a huge change in pace having come from Marseille (and living in Lyon), but it was nice to be in a smaller town. I think that I would have gotten a lot more out of my visit had I taken some sort of guided tour, so all of the monuments could have been explained to me. Instead, we had to try to guess what things were based on their names and the small plaques that were in front of them (which didn't contain very much information). But, I was glad I went, regardless, and if nothing else, the architecture was super cute (very south of France/French countryside)! Sorry for the shortness of this post. The next one should have some more descriptions and information in it. :)

Aaaaaand the adventure continues in Avignon!