Salut!
We've just had a week in Aix-en-Provence and boy what a place. It's a university town, with a very large "old quarter" and so much history, from Roman baths to the Counts of Provence (including Jane's ancestor, more on that a bit later) to the famous French impressionist painter Paul Cezanne.
A highlight from the week was our day trip to Marseille. It's France's second biggest city, sits beautifully on the Mediterranean coast surrounded by scenic mountains, and is a mixture of so much, with a strong African influence with the food and people, and modern buildings with architectural flair amongst ancient forts, palaces, and churches. Below is a photo I took of the new MuCEM museum with the sun setting just as we were making our way back to the car.
Below is another photo taken towards the end of the day. That's the 12th-century Fort St Jean in the foreground and Marseille's amazing harbor behind it.
We had promised Sophie an ice cream at some stage and of course Connor had to have one too...
The harbor is the city's centre piece, and probably has been since the Phocaeans landed here in 600 BC....
Back in Aix, .....here is a statue of the man himself Paul Cezanne. I visited the studio that he used during the last years of his life. It was a memorable experience. It was just the guide and I. It felt like this lovely lady was showing me her father's painting studio while he was out of town. The studio is basically untouched since the day he died. His coats were hanging on the wall, the vases that you see in many of his still lives were there, and you can see some of the blue paint along on the bottom of his easel from when he painted his famous The Bathers series, just before he died.
Cezanne painted Mount Saint-Victoire many times. It sits there majestically about 20 kms out of Aix. I strolled up to the Painters' Ground which is about 30 minutes walk from the centre of town, it was where Cezanne would often go to paint Saint-Victoire. This was one of his paintings of the mountain......
And this was the view of the Saint-Victoire from the Painters Ground...
That same day we drove out to the base of Saint-Victoire and had a little picnic, beautiful spot. At this point the kids were sick of having their photo taken, hence no smiles for the camera from those two. We met a French guy there who I'd say was about 50 years old and he had just returned from walking to the top of the mountain and back in one and a half hours! He does it two or three times a week, inspiring stuff.
We woke up one morning in Aix to see snow again. This photo was taken from our bedroom balcony. This was totally unexpected as Aix is about an hour south from our place in the Luberon and lower in altitude I imagine. You can see the spire of the Eglise St-Jean-de-Malte in the distance.
The snowfall made the front page of the regional "La Provence" paper as shown below where it says "La neige est annoncée aujourd'hui" or in English, "snow is announced today".
Back to the Eglise St-Jean-de-Malte mentioned above. Below is a photo taken of its stunning interior above the altar. According to Jane's family tree Queen Eleanor of Provence is Jane's great (x 18) great grandmother. She appears twice on the family tree, on different sides. Eleanor's father was Raymond Berenguer IV, Count of Provence (1195 – 1245). Looking at the stain glass window below, at the top you have a picture of God the Father, and then just below God on the left is a picture of Raymond Berenguer IV, flanked by Eleanor's sister Beatrice of Provence. Hard to believe I know. It's totally fascinating to me. To think, I married royalty! Well there are just a few generations in between I know :).
And just to the left of the alter is the tomb of Raymond Berengeur IV (on the left), Raymond's father Alfonso II of Provence (in the middle), and Beatrice of Provence (on the right). It's actually a reconstruction as the original was destroyed during the revolution (1789-1799).
Here is a close up of the statue of Raymond Berengeur IV Count of Provence, Jane's great (x 19) grandfather.......
How's this, Raymond had five daughters and each one of them married a king. Eleanor of Provence (pictured below), being one of the daughters, was sent to Britain when she was all of twelve to marry King Henry III of England.
Back to the present day, and here is Sophie (she's eating some cookies we just bought)at the Aix markets whilst we pondered whether to spend 28 euros per kilo on those huge mushrooms you can see. Instead we went for the orange looking mushrooms further up the table on the other side of the avocados, great selection.
We were invited for dinner at the home of the owners of the house we are renting here, Gilles and Louise, and there we met their friends, an American couple, Stan and Ingrid. It was a great night, lovely food, great company, with a highlight definitely being the home made verveine liqueur we had as a night cap.
The rustic and stylish architecture throughout Aix was a real pleasure to see, here are some examples. This is the Hotel d'Albertas, built in 1707....
Time for a coffee and some sun......
Here are the kids enjoying a ride on Santa's sleigh. Christmas is pretty big in France. About the only difference I can see at this point is Santa goes by the name of “Père Noël” (Father Christmas), that and the fact that you are meant to have thirteen different deserts on Christmas eve - I'll give it a go :).
Jane took this photo of us on Cours Mirabeau with some of the Christmas decorations in the background. I think that was the evening we had some vin chaud, which is that delicious warm red wine that has a bunch of herbs in it along with a good splash of Cognac.
On the way down to Aix we visited the 11th century Abbaye de Silvicane. It was pretty special, as it was totally intact. The acoustics in some of the grand rooms were fantastic, I couldn't help but sing a few operatic tunes, just to test it out. Below is a picture of Jane and Soph having a race in front of the Abbaye, leaving Connor way behind to stare at the fish in this elegant and very long pond fed by a near by spring.
We found the source of the spring about 200 metres from the Abbeye and it made a perfect picnic spot. It was one of the main reasons why they built the Abbeye in this location.
Yesterday we climbed Mount Ventoux, well almost, I'd say we were about 100-200 metres from its 1,900m summit, it was getting late and we didn't want to head back down the mountain in the dark. Mount Ventoux is famous for its inclusion in the Tour de France each year and is the tallest mountain in the Provence region. We met this really nice French guy at about the time we decided to head back, his daughter's boyfriend was a Kiwi! He took this photo of us. Sophie had fallen asleep at that point, big day.
At about 5km from the peak we were not allowed to drive any further, due to the snow and risk of black ice I suppose, so out popped the pram and the back pack. Here is Jane in fine athletic form pushing Soph up the Mount. The scenery was amazing. We could see the setting sun reflecting off the Mediterranean way off in the distance.
On the road up there was so much graffiti from Tour de France spectators showing support for their favourite teams and riders. For a stretch there we saw a number of kangaroos spray painted on the road. The photo below shows Jane and pram and some of the graffiti...
It was so nice to be out in the wilderness. Where we are on the edge of the Luberon is ideal for us as we have this type of relatively uninhabited country in one direction and "civilization" in the other.
Bye for now.
We've just had a week in Aix-en-Provence and boy what a place. It's a university town, with a very large "old quarter" and so much history, from Roman baths to the Counts of Provence (including Jane's ancestor, more on that a bit later) to the famous French impressionist painter Paul Cezanne.
A highlight from the week was our day trip to Marseille. It's France's second biggest city, sits beautifully on the Mediterranean coast surrounded by scenic mountains, and is a mixture of so much, with a strong African influence with the food and people, and modern buildings with architectural flair amongst ancient forts, palaces, and churches. Below is a photo I took of the new MuCEM museum with the sun setting just as we were making our way back to the car.
Below is another photo taken towards the end of the day. That's the 12th-century Fort St Jean in the foreground and Marseille's amazing harbor behind it.
We had promised Sophie an ice cream at some stage and of course Connor had to have one too...
The harbor is the city's centre piece, and probably has been since the Phocaeans landed here in 600 BC....
Back in Aix, .....here is a statue of the man himself Paul Cezanne. I visited the studio that he used during the last years of his life. It was a memorable experience. It was just the guide and I. It felt like this lovely lady was showing me her father's painting studio while he was out of town. The studio is basically untouched since the day he died. His coats were hanging on the wall, the vases that you see in many of his still lives were there, and you can see some of the blue paint along on the bottom of his easel from when he painted his famous The Bathers series, just before he died.
Cezanne painted Mount Saint-Victoire many times. It sits there majestically about 20 kms out of Aix. I strolled up to the Painters' Ground which is about 30 minutes walk from the centre of town, it was where Cezanne would often go to paint Saint-Victoire. This was one of his paintings of the mountain......
And this was the view of the Saint-Victoire from the Painters Ground...
That same day we drove out to the base of Saint-Victoire and had a little picnic, beautiful spot. At this point the kids were sick of having their photo taken, hence no smiles for the camera from those two. We met a French guy there who I'd say was about 50 years old and he had just returned from walking to the top of the mountain and back in one and a half hours! He does it two or three times a week, inspiring stuff.
As another example of the amazing scenery in Provence, later that day we headed down to the seaside town of Cassis. It was nice to see the ocean again and wow what a back drop.
We woke up one morning in Aix to see snow again. This photo was taken from our bedroom balcony. This was totally unexpected as Aix is about an hour south from our place in the Luberon and lower in altitude I imagine. You can see the spire of the Eglise St-Jean-de-Malte in the distance.
The snowfall made the front page of the regional "La Provence" paper as shown below where it says "La neige est annoncée aujourd'hui" or in English, "snow is announced today".
Here are the kids in the apartment having some fun. Sophie had put her spare ballerina dress on Connor and they were having a dance, had to take a snap.
And just to the left of the alter is the tomb of Raymond Berengeur IV (on the left), Raymond's father Alfonso II of Provence (in the middle), and Beatrice of Provence (on the right). It's actually a reconstruction as the original was destroyed during the revolution (1789-1799).
Here is a close up of the statue of Raymond Berengeur IV Count of Provence, Jane's great (x 19) grandfather.......
How's this, Raymond had five daughters and each one of them married a king. Eleanor of Provence (pictured below), being one of the daughters, was sent to Britain when she was all of twelve to marry King Henry III of England.
Back to the present day, and here is Sophie (she's eating some cookies we just bought)at the Aix markets whilst we pondered whether to spend 28 euros per kilo on those huge mushrooms you can see. Instead we went for the orange looking mushrooms further up the table on the other side of the avocados, great selection.
We were invited for dinner at the home of the owners of the house we are renting here, Gilles and Louise, and there we met their friends, an American couple, Stan and Ingrid. It was a great night, lovely food, great company, with a highlight definitely being the home made verveine liqueur we had as a night cap.
The rustic and stylish architecture throughout Aix was a real pleasure to see, here are some examples. This is the Hotel d'Albertas, built in 1707....
This is just a random laneway representative of so many through out the town...
The French know how to do doors. This is one of the many along Cours Mirabeau, the famous main avenue of Aix.
Time for a coffee and some sun......
Here are the kids enjoying a ride on Santa's sleigh. Christmas is pretty big in France. About the only difference I can see at this point is Santa goes by the name of “Père Noël” (Father Christmas), that and the fact that you are meant to have thirteen different deserts on Christmas eve - I'll give it a go :).
Jane took this photo of us on Cours Mirabeau with some of the Christmas decorations in the background. I think that was the evening we had some vin chaud, which is that delicious warm red wine that has a bunch of herbs in it along with a good splash of Cognac.
On the way down to Aix we visited the 11th century Abbaye de Silvicane. It was pretty special, as it was totally intact. The acoustics in some of the grand rooms were fantastic, I couldn't help but sing a few operatic tunes, just to test it out. Below is a picture of Jane and Soph having a race in front of the Abbaye, leaving Connor way behind to stare at the fish in this elegant and very long pond fed by a near by spring.
We found the source of the spring about 200 metres from the Abbeye and it made a perfect picnic spot. It was one of the main reasons why they built the Abbeye in this location.
Yesterday we climbed Mount Ventoux, well almost, I'd say we were about 100-200 metres from its 1,900m summit, it was getting late and we didn't want to head back down the mountain in the dark. Mount Ventoux is famous for its inclusion in the Tour de France each year and is the tallest mountain in the Provence region. We met this really nice French guy at about the time we decided to head back, his daughter's boyfriend was a Kiwi! He took this photo of us. Sophie had fallen asleep at that point, big day.
At about 5km from the peak we were not allowed to drive any further, due to the snow and risk of black ice I suppose, so out popped the pram and the back pack. Here is Jane in fine athletic form pushing Soph up the Mount. The scenery was amazing. We could see the setting sun reflecting off the Mediterranean way off in the distance.
On the road up there was so much graffiti from Tour de France spectators showing support for their favourite teams and riders. For a stretch there we saw a number of kangaroos spray painted on the road. The photo below shows Jane and pram and some of the graffiti...
It was so nice to be out in the wilderness. Where we are on the edge of the Luberon is ideal for us as we have this type of relatively uninhabited country in one direction and "civilization" in the other.
Bye for now.
Tous les meilleurs voeux et bonne chance dans le monde (all the best wishes and good luck in the world)
Jane, Soph, Connor, et moi
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