Despite my having no understanding of French at all and Ches having been a French teacher ... a long long time ago admittedly, I have no difficulty with pronouncing Ex-en Provence, Ches can't move on from Ay-en-Provence. She had lots of practice today.

The phone alarm didn't go off, so we were late in leaving for Aix-en-Provence this morning. In 2000, I had sailed past on the motorway on our way to Italy. In response to Che's question, I replied that "no, I hadn't planned on stopping". She has reminded me about this for 14 years. You know, a brief stop on the way to Italy would have been a waste of time. Even the 7 hours we had wasn't enough.

On leaving the car park I had immediately turned right heading toward the wide flat valley heading toward a perceived motorway. Tom made up his mind a minute later; "turn around as soon as possible" The reality was a drive up through the town to the mountain behind and then a 10km drive on narrow mountain and gorge roads that was testing to say the least. With a speed limit of 90kmph, we were luck to reach 60. The locals had no trouble with 90 and we were constantly dodging cars and trucks in both directions using up all of the center of the road when it was barely wide enough for two without scraping the walls or dropping into a ditch.

I hadn't looked at our road map before leaving and still didn't till we returned home. It now seems that we will have to retrace this route on two more days when we drive to Cassis and The Pays D'Aigues Loop. We may eventually achieve 70kmph with practice.

We were still amazed to find that it didn't take any longer than the forecast 1 hour. Then we struck the traffic entering Aix on market day. We had told Tom to direct us to the Tourist Info. office and I observed that this might mean we would end up caught in the middle of the city with nowhere to park. 90% of the traffic were taking a left hand turn but Tom had us going straight ahead. I then decided that if we came across any parking within 1km of the final destination, we would grab it. We grabbed it 100m short of the destination, right in the middle of town, 200m from the clothing market. Naive or foolhardy, fortune favors the brave?

I know we probably didn't see or experience many things that others have when in Aix, however as we had decided a week ago, we aren't going to worry about that. The best we can do is to live in the moment and we did that for 6 hours.

Ches's immediate reaction was that Aix has a "Paris" feel about it. Cours Marabeau is a wide boulevard (mini Champs-Élysées) and off it are a maze of narrow streets and lanes with various squares and fountains, 5 of which host markets on Tuesdays. Apart form the clothing market, there is a kitchenware and bits & pieces square, three food markets and a flower market.

Ches went shopped for gifts on Cours Marabeau before we made our way to the food markets. Against all odds, I was allowed to buy some tiny new season brussel sprouts. They will be cooked with some diced Pancetta Fumee. Yum! Cheeses, Tomme de Chevre (I'll let you know abut it Lee), Brie de Meauk (it was oozing) and Cantal. We also bought four saucisson (Duck, Donkey, Fumee and Herbes des Provence), Asparagus, baby radish, a round zucchini, lavender honey, rabbit thighs and Galettes de Pommes de Terre.

It was 12.30 by the time we finished, so we walked back to the car and put the food in the boot (we had taken along a cooler bag with ice bricks). Once again we headed back up through the back lanes and streets in search of a sun trap cafe/bistro for lunch. So had every other tourist in Aix. Discounting the occasional table in the sun where the wind tunnel defeated the sun, we ended back up at Plac des Precheurs (where we had bought most of our food). They were still packing up the stalls and the only cafe on a sunny corner was packed with locals. We ended up eating inside at Bar Astoria. Ches had fried Mozarella Salad and I had Croque Monsieur.

I'm getting a feeling there is a theme developing here. Toward the end of lunch when we looked at the guidebook and map to decide where to go next, we found that Plac des Precheurs was established opposite the Palais de Justice for public entertainments such as executions. It was also where they burned an effigy of the Marquis de Sade and his valet when they were found guilty of sodomizing prostitutes in Marseille.

We wandered the streets, window shopping. I have a problem; I only saw two pieces of clothing that I really liked. On both occasions so much that I checked the prices. 180E for a knitted top and 200E+ for a pair of trousers. So much for my taste.

I guess the highlights for us were Place et Fontaine de la Mairie with its 1756 fountain, town hall, corn exchange and Astronomical clock tower (time, phases of the moon and wooden statues that change with the seasons.) That now makes three of the major Astronomical clocks we have seen; Strasbourg, Prague and now Aix.

I still cant explain why my favorite site in Aix was Place et Fontaine D'Albertas. Baroque and Rococo, completer in 1745 , in the style of royal squares in Paris. On reflection, I know what it was; on both occasions when we passed by, it was uncluttered and the lines of all buildings are so clean and there is the contrast between restored and weather worn.

We had walked our legs to stumps, and therefore headed home at 4.00. When transferring from one motorway to another on a big loop, police on foot stepped into the road in front of us and I pulled onto the left verge. It appears he wanted the guy behind me for speeding (must have had radar spotting and radioed ahead to stop him. That's fine, but it left us stranded in no mans land and it took forever for us to get back on to the road. And home we went. An hour after we got home we had decided to cancel tomorrow. Well, maybe just a short loop in the afternoon.