Marseille

Marseille, its streets lively and crowded, is a continual fête. The day we were there was not only a market morning, but also the day that Algeria was playing in the FIFA world championship, and Marseille's Algerian partisans added to the daily clamor.

After lunch at our favorite cous cous restaurant off Cours Saint-Louis, we decided to do the climb up to the Cours Julien which we had often heard mentioned. It sits high in the city, an open plaza with restos and cafés and a marché biologique, the streets running off it filled with small shops...but most surprising is the density of the graffiti, the walls of the quarter obviously having been opened to the city's graffiti artists.

View towards the Vieux Port from the steps leading up to the Cours Julien

Back down in the port area, la Maison Diamantée

Narrow streets, tall buildings, and a hodge podge of old and new

We let ourselves be taken advantage of in one of the pricey cafés lining the Vieux Port, but it was worth it, for the perfect afternoon breeze and the view up to the Basilique Notre Dame-de-la-Garde

Aix en Provence, what's being worn on the Cours Mirabeau

Need I add that it is not only French women who spend time before the mirror before going out..

Thyme

Was home with a cold for a couple of day, snoozing and reading in the chaise longue up on the terrace, but by Monday I was back on the road (camera in hand, of course) and we explored one of the back roads in our neighborhood---there are so many beautiful drives, just stepping out the front door and taking any direction-- & along the side of the road, wild thyme! All of Provence is an herb garden!

No one reads a newspaper quite like a Frenchman! I took this picture, and the street shots, in Manosque, a city a bit further north of us, on the Durance river.

Dusk over the village (from our terrace)

La Camargue à cheval

Massif de la Ste Baume

Another day, another mountain...only this time we went up on foot, through a gorgeous forest, up to the site of many pilgrimages, the grotto where Mary Magdalena lived as hermit for the last 30 years of her life. The Benedictines have built a chapel there, hold daily mass, though most visitors are walkers, like us, heading to the top of the massif for the view.

From the chapel one has a clear view to the Ste. Victoire

View from the top of the massif.

Aix en Provence, De fil en rêves

After lunch, weaving through the smaller streets of Aix's old centre, a box in a window display caught my eye. The owner of the atelier, Sylvianne Bertolucci, abandonned her dressmaker's manneqin and invited us in to visit her creations, costumes fabricated for the Venise Carnavale. She works downstairs in an old vaulted sous-sol that she brought back to life herself. Her website: http://www.defilenreves.fr

Sylvianne Bertolucci with a costume she created over four months.

Our destination for the afternoon was a small museum with a private collection of faience and other objets. When we arrived at the door, there was the inevitable paper sign tacked up: Museum closed. Ring for the library. Instructions on the little brass plates next to the doors said 1 ring for the museum, 2 rings for the library, so I rang twice. We heard a heavy key turning, and the heavy doors opened and a woman looked out. The library was only made available to researchers and she had not idea when the museum would next be open, which could be next year, or the year after that.
We retreated to the Cours Mirabeau where we bought a bar of dark chocolate as consolation.

Robert on rue 4 septembre, of our close encounter with the museum

Reine, at the Monoprix on the Cours Mirabeau...generous and helpful and a fan of Montreal which she visited and admires for (what else?) its poutine...among other things.

Parking is always dicey in Aix.