A Visit to Aix-en-Provence

After docking at the port of Marseilles we took a bus tour this morning to the beautiful old Provencal village of Aix-en-Provence. The guide stressed how the town was famed as being the birth and death site of the great French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cezanne. Though we quickly sped by his father’s house most sites we toured in the city dated from earlier eras. The tree-lined boulevard of the Cours Mirabeau is broad and full of impressive 17th and 18th century houses once owned by the town’s wealthiest residents. Other notable buildings include the Hotel Particulier (or private mansion) that became the city’s museum of natural history, the Hotel de Ville (town hall), and the Palais de Justice or courthouse. The tour ended with a visit to the cathedral of Saint Saveur, which is an architectural combination of both the Romanesque and Gothic styles. It’s not as impressive as the larger, more famed Gothic cathedrals in other French cities, yet this church nicely fits into the scale of Aix-en-Provence. We returned in time for lunch on board the Seabourn Legend, and then Jim lay in the bright afternoon sun while our ship left France, headed out to sea to Spain. Late in the afternoon we dressed for a semi-formal dinner, since it was the night to greet the ship’s captain.