Aix-en-Provence

A short break

I loved Aix-en-Provence. The Hotel Cardinal is a gem of a place in a quiet street, and I was delighted to see my lovely room.

It was like stepping back in time but with modern facilities. I instantly felt at home.

Aix is a grand and graceful city with a mixture of wide boulevards and higgledy-piggledy streets. A route for all seasons.

It was founded in123 BCE by the Roman Consul Sextius Calvinus who destroyed a nearby Gallic town before noticing warm springs further south where he established the town. A sort of murderous Beau Bummel. He modestly named the city Aquae Sextiae after himself. It is famous for its fountains.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire Aix was conquered by Visigoths, Franks, Lombards and Saracens who presumably desired a good wash and scrub. It eventually became the capital of Provence and a centre of the arts and scholarship.

King Louie, I presume.

Many of its buildings are made of honey coloured stone so it’s as if the English Cotswolds have been transported to the South of France.

It’s one of the most civil and beautiful places I’ve ever visited. It’s a university town so there are many young people who wander around seemingly unconcerned by important matters like the environment, politics and war. They seem to want to have fun. Tut tut. There are also a fair number of older rather raffish and bohemian looking people who I guess once were just as young and just as unconcerned by anything beyond themselves and their circle.

Everyone, bar me, looks elegant and glamorous. The people of Aix wear their clothes and their good looks effortlessly. Even the dogs are haute couture. No one seems to hurry, they glide from one kiss and conversation to the next. The street cleaners are the most stylish I’ve ever seen. I expect one of them to say to me, ‘The name’s Broom, James Broom.’

I’ve recently decided I’d like to be a flaneur which Wikipedia tells me is ‘a type of urban male stroller, lounger, saunterer or loafer, an ambivalent figure of urban affluence and modernity, representing the ability to wander detached from society, gaining entertainment from the observation of urban life.’ Although it’s a French term, it comes from the old Norse word, flana, which meant to wander with no purpose. Better than all that pillaging and mayhem we always think was all that the Vikings were interested in.

That’s the life for me - a saunterer, an idler, a people watcher and one who owns a stylish brown fedora. And Aix-en-Provence is just the place to be one. Anyone for loafing?

In fact, it’s such an interesting concept I’m going to research it and get back to you.

And in the meantime, I’ll loaf and people watch in Aix.