Aix

April 11

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We wanted to get up early so we could get the car back to the rental agency before noon. We awoke to a loud clap of thunder and a downpour. By the time we had breakfast and had the car packed the rain had stopped and we were off to Aix.

The trip went well until we discovered a flaw with the navigation system. It was still recording a detour for N7 near Aix, so we got the grand tour of some of the Northern suburbs of Aix. We still got the car back early.

The hotel was only a few blocks away, so we toted our bags to the hotel St. Christophe and checked in. It began to rain as we went out to get lunch and we discovered we had left our umbrella behind in the car. A quick trip back to the rental car agency to get our umbrella and we were off to get our tickets for the bus to Nice on Saturday. The bus was almost full already, so we went off to lunch feeling we were fortunate to get the tickets when we did.

With our poor record of finding good restaurants on this trip, we decided to have a little larger lunch at the Flunch just in case. We had salmon with three types of veggies. After lunch we scouted out restaurants for that evening. The two places we remembered from our last stay in Aix were now pizza restaurants, so we started searching the back streets. We decided to try Chez Denis.

Our search took us to many areas of Aix we had never seen since the old town has many winding narrow roads.

As always there are fountains at almost every square. Some are still used for drinking water. The last time we were in Aix, the thermal baths of Sextius were being rebuilt. This time they were open and as we discovered were in use. At the entrance the archeological remains can be seen through windows.

We walked back into the city and came to the cathedral. We had been inside the last time and seen the baptistry that dated back to Roman times. This time we had a special treat as the organist was practicing for the Sunday mass. We stopped and listened for a long time.

Along the way we saw this sign(right) on a toy store.

We came out of the back streets at the end of the Cours Mirabeau with the statue of good King René. The Cours Mirabeau is the main street of Aix where the north (sunny) side of the street is lined with cafès and the south (shady) side has banks. We walked to the other end of the Cours and had coffee on the not quite so sunny side. After that the sun came out and we found one of the famous Callison bakeries of Aix.

We ate at Chez Denis that evening. Our entre was a gratin d’aubergines au parmesan (egg plant with broiled parmesan cheese topping). The main dish we had was magret de canard en brochette au fromage de chèvre et au thym (duck breast on a skewer with goat cheese and thyme).

At the second table from the front on the left a couple from Britain asked the waiter what one of the menu items was. He didn't know how to translate it, but had noticed that Jan and I spoke English, so he asked her to translate. Once the conversations started, there was lots conversations started between the tables and it almost turned into a party. Everyone said goodbye as we left.

We returned to our hotel to rest a bit before dinner and saw this out of our window.


(From http://restaurant.chezdenis.free.fr/)
We ate at the first table on the left.

Nice