The campsite is neat and tidy, near a small village overlooking the huge outcrop known as Mont St Victoire. We bask in warm sunshine under perpetually blue skies but the nights a cool.

Today we took our first urban visit for over two weeks with a bus trip to Aix en Provence. The local service is easy and delivered us to the middle of Aix in 40 minutes. As its a saturday the town was very busy with tourists but we went to see the market. This lasts until early afternoon so we had an early start eg 7am for breakfast even though the bus was not until 10am. However, we had to walk into the village, about a kilometre and to be early to m ake sure we did not miss it!

All was well and we duly arrived at the bus station (Gare Routiere) before wandering towards the market area. As Aix is the European City of Culture in 2013 it is,perhaps, busier than usual but the day was warm and pleasant so not really a problem.

Unusually for us we stopped for an early lunch -mistake- as it delayed our arrival in thye market area. Aix, like many old french towns is, well, old and the street area for the market is full of narrow streets and squarea. One is called Place de Tanneurs, for example, which gives tends to away its original purpose!

At first it looked as though the stalls had closed and everything had finished but fortunately this proved wrong. There are, by the look of it, four different market areas. The first, was the Marche des Pouces stalls which did not delay us long even though they had some very nice pots in a range of bright colours. Meryl was tempted but then changed her mind!

The second and for us the most interesting part were the stalls selling local produce of all kinds. Fruit and vegetable was widespread and I can understand why chefs get so excited by such fare. It is fresh and looks ready to eat. Mixed in with this are the wide variety of stalls selling things like cheese, breads in great variety of styles, processed meats like hams and salamis, garlic and lavender and so on. The spice stalls exuded a fascinating smell! We wandered through the stalls and were eventually persuaded to but a small piece of cheese - only the second piece since we left home (its the diet!). We also surrendered to the coffee man, mainly because we are about to run out. A brief discussion focsed on the beans he had left; not Rwanda as they has proved very popular but we agreed on Nicaragua beans ground to suit our ,French Presse, as he called the Cafetiere. meryl had tried to encourage him by saying that in England we did not have good coffee but he siad that there were good shops in London. "Oh," I said, "like Costa Coffee". he siad nothing and continued his work. "Or Starbucks, perhaps?". This provoked a suitable comment/response and laughter! Hope the coffee tastes good when we try it later.

The third market consists of clothes. I was looking for a new hat, mainly for golf, but all I could find were those straw types with a brim which I did not want. Apart form that there were the usual sets of shirts, cloth and other things of little interest to me. So I wandered to the end of the street and wiated while Meryl looked for.... well somethings she never found!

Finally, and certainly quite small was the flower market but one that gace off a dense, sweet smell that filled the square, even though most of the sellers were packing up to go home.

All around us were the locals and tourists tucking into lunch in the huge number of cafes and restaurants offering on the street dining. Then there were the people like us who sat and watched, or ate a baguette purchased from a local boulangerie. All fasinating. It might even be fair to report that it was hot but in fact the temperature has fallen since yesterday. The mistral has arrived and this is reducing the temprature a little. It has not so far been very warm hot but now its slightly lower. I suppose we might say it is comfortable.