AIX en Provence - by Sue Scoggins, North Carolina Painter

Place des Trois Ormeaux

Aix.
The city that closes up at night and reinvents itself the next day. 

Before the Spanish quitarist's concert tonight, I was going to this little cafe at the Fountain de la Rotonde and "voila!" It's not there. I swear I sat at a table there before.

The streets and city squares are crowded with people, darting in and out of shops, dodging the occasional car or moped. Unlike the US folks who walk on the right side of the street or sidewalk, the Aix people walk on all sides and in the middle..so do the cars drive in between the people or on the side or wherever they can get through.  They are mini cars.  That along with trying to stabilize myself on these cobblestone streets, makes me feel a bit wobbly.  The Aix en Provence rose wine doesn't help either.  Every corner and ally way has a little venue set up with their tables, chairs and umbrellas.  They stay open most of the night. Every language is buzzing. Energy is high.  The next morning they are gone.

Being an early riser, when I peek out of my apartment, there s no one. It is silent accept for the occasional street washer with his hose.  The streets are like empty ally ways with the sun lighting up the sides of buildings moving the shades as if lowering them. By 830, the farmers, fishermen, flower vendors, antique book dealers, and sellers of fine linens come in to set up at the markets. Someone new is setting up every day.  What was a square filled with restaurants last night, today is a market with juicy produce, fresh lettuce, assorted goat cheeses with the herbs of the day, and the butcher carving meats.  If the street names weren't engraved on bronze plaques, I would swear that I was in a different place.

Now.  THIS is a fish market!
(soon to be a painting)

There seems to be no racism here.  Every skin color is different. Every county is represented. Every language is spoken.  Every age walks, young and old.  

In the evening,  the sun doesn't go down until 10pm. I'm sitting at a cafe near the one that disappeared, drinking a vin rouge before the concert.  I write while the table next to me speaks French.  The children bungi jump across the way, springing up and down off of trampolines, a grunge twenty something girl, with pink dreadlocks and a beret, is tapping the street with her black puppy.  Everyone is smiling. 

Must pay up now,  My wine was 2.50 E.  Tip included.  Au revoire.  Merci.