When I walked around my town of Aix en Provence, I often found that the most beautiful streets were those with features that had been there for decades, perhaps even hundreds, of years. Aix is famous for its picturesque fountains - being home to over forty of them - which add to the town's rustic provencal charm, most of which comes from the fact that most of the buildings and streets have not changed in a long time, everything still looks as it did a hundred years ago. A lot of Provence is still in the same shape as it has always been in with farmhouses and fields and uneven alleyways between buildings with faded blue painted window shutters. Walking along the back streets of the town, you can almost feel as if time had stopped years ago due to the absence of modernised buildings, advertisements which light up the entire street and mainstream chain shops which clutter up high streets.
One of the simplest pleasures to be enjoyed is to simply pop into a bakery, buy a tasty baguette, and take a stroll around Aix and just enjoy the sights of the blue shuttered windows, gently flowing fountains, marble statues and other evidences of Aix's younger years.
For me, one of my favourite parts of Aix was the old product adverts that had been painted onto building walls decades ago but still survive today.
No comments:
Post a Comment