The Aix market is large and Provencal–sells everything! We walked down Cours de Mirabeau, the main street there, in the beautiful spring weather where the clothing part of the market stretched for blocks. Clay bought a fine panama hat and he and Allan tasted and bought sardines.
After lunch we walked through the old town and about 30 minutes up Avenue Paul Cezanne to his atelier near the top of a steep hill. He bought a 7000 square meter piece of property for 2000 franks with his inheritance from his mother and built this home and studio. At the time it was built, the property was unused fields from farming. Now it is a wood of native plants and trees filled with birdsong. The interior of the atelier is quite large with a tremendous north facing window, no east and west windows and the ability to shutter the south windows for the perfect light. The floor is a soft natural wood 
instead of the bright terra cotta floors in the rest of the house and the walls are painted a color that he chose–a perfect background of mostly gray blue. On shelves along the wall are displayed all of the bottles, vases, skulls and other items he used in his many still life paintings. We could not see Montagne Sainte-Victoire, which he painted over sixty times. He walked up the hill a bit further with his easel to have the view we see in his series of oil paintings. Seeing this beautiful property and atelier was well worth the hike.
We ubered to the car and returned to St. Remy for an “every person for him/her self” dinner at the villa and turned in early.
Latest Travels 