Rose Cantine

This is the first of travel notes in the Provence this summer. I have gathered together my favorite places — museums, churches, markets, villages — and made random notes of recipes, restaurants, hotels and so on.

Aix-en-Provence is a small city about 45 minutes drive from Marseille’s airport (which is well outside Marseille so there’s little traffic there). Because Aix is a student town, it’s very lively, especially at night, when everyone seems to begin dinner at midnight, and then continue on from there. The vibe is very much like the Born and Raval areas of Barcelona.

My favorites in Aix are sacred and profane: the Saint-Saveur Cathedral and the market (Saturday mornings). The cathedral was started in the 5th century and finished in the 17th. It boasts of a holy relic - a wooden fragment of the actual Cross on which Jesus was crucified. Before you get too excited about this, bear in mind that there are dozens of churches all over Europe that claim to have a fragment of The Cross and that if you glued all of these fragments together, you’d probably be able to build an entire bridge across the Strait of Gibraltar.

Anyway, Saint-Saveur’s ancient walls, the garden, baptistery and quiet side chapels are all wonderful places for meditation and reflection. As I was there on my birthday, July 1, I lit a candle and said a little prayer.

The market in Aix is astonishing not only because of the variety of fruit and vegetables, but because the fruit is very delicious. Cherries and Cavaillon melons are in season so I bought several bags and ate them over the next few days.

I posted photos of the market on Flickr so you can see what humans are really supposed to be eating (as opposed to fast food).

For more information on Aix-en-Provence, go to the city’s website. Bear in mind that if you are traveling in the summer, nearly every destination - whether it’s a city of a tiny village - has some kind of festival, which may make it difficult to find a hotel room or a table at a good restaurant. Aix and Avignon, Arles and Nîmes are known for art, theater and photography festivals (the latter two also have bullfights in the spring).