# Aix-en-Provence, Cézanne’s City — The South of France
> A city of fountains and plane trees, an avenue made for the evening stroll, and the mountain a painter turned into the modern age. Aix-en-Provence, in the Bouches-du-Rhône.

*Source : https://the-south-of-france.com/en/provence/aix-en-provence/*

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By **The Editors** — _Aix-en-Provence_

Spring 20268 min read Share LinkMail

Aix was a spa town for the Romans and a parliament town for the kings, and it still moves at the pace of both — slow, civilised, shaded. The plane trees of the **Cours Mirabeau** close overhead, the fountains run warm with the old thermal water, and the whole city seems built for the hour before dinner.

## I. The Cours and the old town

The **Cours Mirabeau** is the spine — cafés on the sunny side, grand hôtels particuliers on the shade, a fountain at each end and the mossy **Fontaine d’Eau Chaude** in the middle. Behind it the old town is a tangle of squares and markets; on the other side the **quartier Mazarin** lays out its seventeenth-century calm around the **Fontaine des Quatre-Dauphins**.

“A city of a thousand fountains, and not one of them in a hurry.”

From the notebook

![A mossy stone fountain in a shaded square](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1601370641788-548389c60155?fm=jpg&q=74&w=1400&auto=format&fit=crop)

A fountain in the Mazarin quarter — warm water, old stone, deep shade.

## II. Cézanne and the mountain

Aix is **Paul Cézanne**’s city. His studio, the **Atelier des Lauves**, is kept as he left it on the hill above town; from the **Terrain des Peintres** nearby you see what he saw — the **Montagne Sainte-Victoire**, the limestone ridge he painted again and again until it stopped being a mountain and became the beginning of modern art.

![A limestone mountain ridge above a green plain](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1445510491599-c391e8046a68?fm=jpg&q=76&w=2400&auto=format&fit=crop)

The Montagne Sainte-Victoire — Cézanne’s subject, and the city’s horizon.

## III. Markets, museums and the table

The markets fill the squares most mornings — flowers on the **Place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville**, produce and brocante on the **Place des Prêcheurs**. The **Musée Granet** holds the city’s art, Cézanne included; and the **calisson**, the almond-and-melon sweet, has been made here for centuries. Aix is also the easiest base for the Sainte-Victoire and the country around it.

The Practical Carnet · Carnet pratique

### Plan the _visit_

Getting there

Aix-en-Provence TGV is 15 min out of town; the centre is best on foot, all of it walkable.

When to go

Spring and early autumn; the markets are at their best on a clear weekday morning.

Where to stay

**Villa Gallici**, just above the centre, for the gardens and the shade.

Read next

[Gordes and the Abbey of Sénanque](https://the-south-of-france.com/en/provence/gordes-senanque/)

E

About the Author · L’auteur

#### Élise Marchand

Travel Editor — based in Marseille

Élise has been driving the back roads of the Midi for the journal since its first issue. She pays for her own rooms and her own lunches — and only writes about the places she would return to.

[More by Élise Marchand — voir ses articles](https://the-south-of-france.com/en/journal/)

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