Aix-en-Provence, France
Up and out of Avignon late today, on the road about 11:15am and pointed east. We wanted to try the road less travelled today, no more of the superhighways. We want the back-country roads where we have to pass through the villiages, wait behind the horse-drawn carts, the rural stuff. But first we have to convince our one-eyed travel guide, Hal.
Hal doesn't like the idea. Hal doesn't like horse-drawn carts, or donkeys, or goats walking on roads. No matter what we do, he wants us to go back onto the superhighway. Course, he doesn't tell us that, he just gives directions. One time, early in the day, we followed him. He led us around some REAL backroads for about 10 minutes, then told us to turn left onto the road which all the signs said would take us to A7, the superhighway. We laughed and gave him a slap on the nose, turning him off.
Now Jan is the sole navigator, and we find our way back to D7N, our country road, and follow it all the way to Aix. Jan was excellent, of course, but when she's navigating in detail like that she can't take pictures, so our photo record of the trip suffers a bit. What I have to do is work a bit better with the waypoints for Hal, and see if there is a switch somewhere in his setup that says to avoid highways and stay on secondary roads. Me 'n Hal will work it out.
Arrived at Aix-en-Provence just after lunch, parked downtown in an underground lot, and a short hike to the Tourist Info center that Jan had spotted. There they told us what was up in town (not much, the season is just starting) and gave us a list of local hotels and some walking maps of the 'centre-ville'. One of the staff caught Jan unawares and got her to fill out a questionaire about us, where we are from, and how we found them. Jan does those things without complaining, she's so nice.
Shortly we were in the hotel, car in the underground parking area, and soon after we were on the street on a park bench opposite the big city-center fountain having our lunch of croissants and meat and cheese, banana and an orange, and wine in our travelling mugs. Hey! I heard that. This is France, you have to do like the locals, the car is parked for a couple of days, and it is lunchtime. At least we drank our wine from our travelling mugs and not from the bottle in a paper bag like the guy a couple of benches over.
After lunch we went on a hike, about four hours, all over the old town. We were armed with the tourist map of the walking tour, and it was a good one. We were too late to see the cabin used by Paul Cezanne to do his painting, we'll try for that tomorrow. One tour in English each day, 4:00pm, and if you miss it you're out of luck. At the end, tongues hanging out, we hit a Brasserie for wine and beer. It tasted great, and the view of the town 'en Promenade' was priceless. The women are done up perfectly and are very fashion-conscious, colors in perfect coordination, hair perfectly arranged even when it had a sort of studied casual look to it. The men, another story. What a bunch of ratty looking individuals. Maybe they would clean up OK, but I'm not even sure of that. And fully 75% of the people, male or female, walk around with cigarettes between their fingers or in their mouths. And, of course, the issue of second-hand smoke is simply not an issue here at all. In the restaurants, on the patios, in the streets, wherever, it doesn't matter. Jan and I are bemused by this and don't complain about whatever is happening. Its their country, their fashion, their traditions, and we are visitors. Besides, it takes us back to our early years when it was a very accepted practice in North America, a trip down memory lane. So, no worries, its all good.
The weather was great, bright sunshine with puffy white cumulus drifting by from time to time, mild temperature although we got quite warm with all the hiking and when sitting in the sun at the end of the day.
Finally done, back to the hotel to crash.
