A southern ‘Mecca’ for many tourists, Aix-en-Provence is proud to be different, combining a sumptuous architectural heritage with an Italian-style ‘art of living’. The town in which appearance and culture are important continues to attract the crowds...

Only thirty kilometres from Marseille and already a totally different style! A champion of the art of good living, the town dear to the heart of King René owes its reputation to an abundant architecture mixed with transalpine Baroque and its incomparable verve. An atmosphere that combines middle-class refinement and self-obsessed nonchalance, and encapsulated by the town’s unchallenged title of the most ‘Italian’ French town.

Aix is full of private mansions, country houses, gardens, fountains, small peaceful squares and lively terraces: summer and winter alike, the Cours Mirabeau, at the heart of the old town, swarms with festive life as the latest fashions are exhibited by an ostentatious crowd. The reputation is not a recent one. Zola immortalised the town in his novels. Cézanne painted it again and again, and was particularly fond of putting his favourite Mont Sainte-Victoire on canvas; an image that the Japanese have loved ever since.

The town is also a business centre. A model of urban organisation, its old centre is full of elegant fashion boutiques, a sign of the higher-than-average standard of living. Every year in July, elitism reaches its height with the International Opera Festival.

The rest of the time, Aix lives to the rhythms of its court sessions and student life. The Appeal Court and the well-known Faculty of Human Sciences play a full part in this surprising mix of classicism and frivolity.