We scheduled most of this day for a gentle wander round Aix. 

A word about the weather – as with every other day of this holiday, we woke to clear skies and as the day went on the temperature rose to around 30 degrees. 

As with the Rhone valley, winds rose through the afternoon and helped keep us reasonably comfortable. It hasn’t felt particularly humid and it has been cooler in the evenings.

All the reviews of the Airbnbs we have been using have featured comments about the summer heat and the various properties’ air conditioning or lack of it. It looks like 40 degrees was the norm for long periods this summer and the wine salesman in Chateauneuf-du-Pape said that it had been that hot until very recently.

Happily, 30 degrees with breezy afternoons has made for comfortable cycling and general holidaying. 

A final note on the heat – whilst researching Aix, we found the quoted average temperature for July was 25 degrees. That will need amending! 

Back to Aix and we wandered the narrow and colourful streets to the north of the centre. Markets sprout in many of the squares in the morning and fade away sometime after lunch.

As previously noted, Aix is generally quieter and less touristy than Avignon and the high proportion of young people added to the sense of a vibrant city.

We spent a profitable couple of hours in the Musée Granet, which is dedicated to Paul Cézanne and has several of is paintings though most of his output is held elsewhere. We discovered more about this revolutionary artist who was born and died in the city and painted many scenes in the local Provence hills including La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, which we had explored the previous day.

The museum also housed a large sculpture collection. The current featured exhibition was dedicated to Paul McCartney’s photography from 1963 to 1964. It was an impressive selection of images and McCartney was clearly a talented and dedicated snapper. 

There were shots from the Beatles trips to New York, Florida and Paris and additional photography from some of the press photographers of the time. 

McCartney’s images were largely candid shots of the group and their support crew, and of fans at airports and city locations. 

We ate lunch in the museum’s cool and peaceful courtyard, before heading off for a little shopping and then down to the bus station for our late afternoon trip to Avignon, where we had an apartment, appropriately called “Cezanne”, for our final two nights. 

Aix Streets etc