Aix-en-Provence

After our stay in Marseille, we traveled upwards to Aix-en-Provence. This picture shows where the government forced the Jewish population to live during World War II. It was a poor and unsanitary ghetto at the time and the streets were closed off at the end of the day forbidding anyone to enter or leave the area. Now only a plaque marks the square as a ghetto and it is a lively place of business, belying its ugly past.


After this stop we traveled onward towards Cezanne's Studio, traversing the Pavillon de Vendôme which was built in 1665 for Louis de Mercoeur, the duke of Vendôme to house his mistresses as the story goes. If you look at the front door and see the men on either side of the woman holding their heads....it is a poignant reminder of the headaches you will get if you try this.

And finally we arrived at Cezanne's studio where he painted many of his paintings...at the time that he stayed here he considered it to be "the country" but today Aix-en-Provence is anything but country.












Finally as we were touring about the center of town we found this wonderful cookie shop with the most out of this world cookies and ended up buying a whole tin full, what a great way to finish our stay here.