Aix-en-Provence sits half an hour north of Marseille, a university town built around a web of plane-shaded squares and baroque fountains. The Romans founded it as a spa settlement, and the ochre stone and shuttered townhouses still carry that sense of order and prosperity. Cézanne was born here in 1839 and spent much of his life painting Mont Sainte-Victoire from nearby hillsides.
The self-catering gîtes near Aix put you close to the vineyard country around Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade and within an hour of the Camargue wetlands or the Luberon hills. The town itself works as a base for touring Provence, with good motorway links west to Arles and east to the coast at Cassis.
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About Aix-en-Provence
Aix has kept its old quarter remarkably intact. The Cours Mirabeau — a wide avenue lined with cafés and bookshops — divides the medieval Mazarin district from the tangle of lanes around the cathedral. The Fontaine de la Rotonde, a three-tiered fountain crowned with statues, marks the western entrance to the centre. On most mornings the market on Place Richelme sells vegetables, cheese and cut flowers under striped canvas awnings.
The Paroisse Cathédrale Saint Sauveur mixes Romanesque, Gothic and baroque elements in a single building, with a set of sixteenth-century carved doors and a fifth-century baptistery tucked into one corner. The Musée Granet holds paintings by Ingres, Rembrandt and a room devoted to Cézanne, though his own studio — the Atelier Cézanne — sits on a hill north of the old town and shows the easel and still-life objects he used in his final years.
Beyond the centre, the countryside opens into vineyards and garrigue scrub. Château La Coste, a working vineyard and contemporary art estate northwest of Aix, commissions sculptures and pavilions from architects including Tadao Ando and Frank Gehry. The terrain turns hillier as you head east towards Sainte-Victoire, or flatter and more agricultural going west towards the Durance valley.
Things to do near Aix-en-Provence
The Musée Granet occupies a former priory near Place Saint-Jean-de-Malte and shows French and Italian paintings alongside a rotating collection of modern works. Hôtel de Caumont, an eighteenth-century mansion, hosts temporary exhibitions and has formal gardens open in summer. Cézanne's studio is a twenty-minute walk uphill from the centre, preserved much as he left it in 1906.
Zoo Barben, twenty kilometres west in the Durance valley, keeps elephants, white rhinos and big cats in wooded enclosures covering thirty-three hectares. The Village Des Automates, near Barben, is an amusement park with animated figures and fairground rides aimed at younger children. Friche la Belle de Mai, a converted tobacco factory in Marseille, programmes theatre, dance and exhibitions in raw industrial spaces.
Lac de Peyrolles, fifteen kilometres north, is a reservoir used for windsurfing and stand-up paddleboarding, with a swimming beach on the southern shore. The Fontaine de la Rotonde anchors the start of the Cours Mirabeau and is floodlit at night. Château La Coste offers vineyard walks, a restaurant and a sculpture trail that takes two to three hours at a gentle pace.
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Food & drink
Aix's markets run daily except Monday, with the largest on Place Richelme and a separate flower market on the square outside the old town hall. Provençal staples include tapenade, anchoïade and calissons — the almond-and-melon sweets that have been made in Aix since the fifteenth century. The Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence appellation covers rosé and red wines from vineyards stretching west to Salon-de-Provence.
Château La Coste runs a restaurant overlooking the vines and serves estate wines alongside lunch dishes built around seasonal vegetables. La Rotonde is a brasserie on the Cours Mirabeau with outdoor tables and a menu of grilled fish and meats. Cheese comes from nearby farms in the Alpilles and the plateau of Valensole, particularly banon wrapped in chestnut leaves and brousse, a fresh ewe's-milk curd eaten with honey or herbs.
Getting there
Marseille Provence airport is twenty-one kilometres southwest of Aix and has direct buses to the town centre that take thirty minutes. The airport serves most British cities via easyJet, Ryanair and British Airways. Nice Côte d'Azur airport lies 143 kilometres east along the A8 motorway, roughly ninety minutes by car.
From Paris Gare du Nord, the TGV takes three hours to Aix-en-Provence TGV station, which sits fifteen kilometres west of the town. Driving from Calais via the A26 and A7 motorways covers around nine hundred kilometres and takes eight to nine hours. Caen/Ouistreham, served by Brittany Ferries from Portsmouth, is 771 kilometres northwest — a full day's drive through central France.