Aix: A Little Wine, a Little Cheese, a Little Stroll

We docked in Marseille and went to Aix en Provence for a walking tour and a wine and cheese tasting.

Port of Marseille

Marseille is the oldest town in France. It was discovered 2,600 years ago by the Greeks. I was disappointed to see so much graffiti on the highways as we drove around. It was just tags, no artwork, and made it seem very run down and dirty.

Some of the abundant graffiti on the roadways

French countryside

Aix (pronounced “X”) is a university town, and we found out there were protests planned for the next day, so the university closed early and the streets were not as crowded as usual. 

Tree-lined streets of Aix-en-Provence

Aix was once the medieval capital of Provence. There are wide boulevards for pedestrians lined with shops and markets to explore, cafes to sit in, and people-watch. The town itself is beautifully restored and maintained. Aix has more than 300 days of sun a year, and today was no exception.

We stopped at the Cathedrale Saint-Sauveur, walked through a farmer’s market, and saw the old Clock Tower and the different types of architecture in the town.

French cheese!

Paul Cezanne is now a notable resident, but he was not well-noted when he was alive. As our guide explained, being one of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, he was “weird” and people didn’t know how to take him. Now, almost every building he went into – even the streets where he walked – are marked with plaques.

Paul Cezanne walked here

After our walking tour, we went to La Cave du Cours for a wine and cheese tasting. Our host Leah provided us with a Rosé (which the region is known for) with some type of strong, firm cheese; a white wine blend with goat cheese on rustic bread; and a red wine blend with camembert. Leah took us through the steps of tasting wine (look, smell, taste) and explained the difference between the wines we sampled. She also explained how they combine each type of grape to make a distinctive flavor and the rules that must be followed to call a certain wine by a certain name. I enjoyed one of them so much I bought two bottles. 

Heading into La Cave

Leah, our sommelier 

A lovely rosé

A full-bodied red

Someone loves to play in the water

Walking through the historical district

Fun trivia fact: in the Iles de Frioul archipelago off Marseille, the smallest of the islands, If, is the home of the fortress-prison Château d’If, where the title character of The Count of Monte Cristo was imprisoned.

Leaving Marseille, we ran into the mistral winds, a strong, cold northwesterly wind that blows from Southern France into the Gulf of Lion in the northern Mediterranean, typically as the seasons transition from winter to spring. Winds can get quite strong; the captain said we could get gusts up to 45 mph, but that we would be out of it by morning in Barcelona. I love a good storm, so I moved between my balcony to watch the waves crashing and mist blowing all around, listening to the hangers in the closet clang together, and watching my "wave gauge" swing back and forth with the pitch of the ship.

My "wave gauge", aka Towel Monkey