Aix-en-Provence in Winter

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The following photos date back an outing we did to Aix-en-Provence exactly two years ago.

The Town hall Square (Place de l’Hôtel de Ville) is the lively city’s heart. It’s always busy in day time, and enjoying a moment’s rest sitting at a café pavement is one of the appeals of the town life. That day, a good coat was required, though.

 

Through the archway visible at the bottom left of the previous photo, you can see this several-decade old advertisement, praising a shoe polish. Perhaps almost a century old , it owes its rather fresh appearance to the dry climate and the good paints of those times. But it has maybe been restored some time.

Here is another old ad. Will this one, badly weathered already, disappear for good worn away by time or under the stroke of the murals’ worse enemy, the cleaning? See also HERE.

 

In Provençal towns and villages, house corners often display a saint’s statue in its niche. This character might be St.James, because of the shells, or it is St.Roch showing his ‘plague bubo’.

Pavillon Vendôme, in a public garden, is a good goal for a stroll. It’s worth resting on a bench and looking at its beautiful 17th century south façade.

The two atlantes, painfully supporting the balcony, are a frequent pattern in Provençal sculpture on rich dwellings front doors.

St.Sauveur Cathedral conceals treasures. Here is the baptistry rotunda.

The light wooden ceiling of the four galleries in the cathedral’s cloister made it possible to design these slight and delicate twin columns.            Huberaime