Before my course started I made the most of Marseille’s fantastic location to go and explore the cities, towns, and villages that surround it. Aix-en-Provence is only half an hour away from Marseille, but I could not find two cities as opposite as the two; historically, culturally, and most of all socially! The habitants of the two ‘dislike’ each other to put it nicely. Aix is very very pretty, picturesque, almost too beautiful, Marseille is much more of a real city, that gets dirty, almost but too dirty unlike Aix which happens to also be very bourgeois and conservative. Aix is the second most expensive city in France after Paris and there is also a certain snobbishness just like the infamous parisians.
Although I have to say, I admit to being a typical Aix-en-Provence sucker, I love it! I usually don’t like to use the word delightful in case of sounding ridiculously posh but wandering round the old town of Aix really is such a delight, it is so picturesque and it is a very uplifting town (unlike Marseille) the streets are flooded with cafes, boutiques, antique shops, very overpriced clothes shops, trillions of tempting restaurants, it just has everything a stereotypical tourist would seek! So this does explain why everyone abroad comes to Aix and knows of Aix no one really goes to Marseille. I love both for their own reasons, but I find it very refreshing having Aix so close by , if I ever have enough of grubby Marseille I can just hop on a bus and stroll around the old town of Aix, taking a note of amazing market day on Saturday!
