We were without a tour guide for the day(West was driving Megs and the kids to the airport), so we ventured out on our own to Aix en Provence. Today was a "me" day. Or "A day when mom got to choose a little more of what we did". I had read about how Paul Cezanne was born/raised/lived/died in Aix, so I wanted to go see his studio.
After a few wrong turns we finally made it to his studio for them to tell us that they were closed for siesta. (That two hour lunch break really messed up our plans some days. It's not something we're used to planning for in the US. No one would shut for lunch. They'd be happy to make more money...)
So we went off for our own lunch break.
Pizza, spaghetti, and crepes were on the menu.
Milk was on the menu for this girl!
We didn't wander through a lot of the old city, but the parts we did were beautiful.
I love the narrow streets and the beautiful buildings.
We saw this stand of chocolate and Sweetie wanted me to take a picture and ask "What's wrong with this stand?" If you can tell me what he was thinking we'll send you a prize!
An old church in the city.
While walking up to Cezanne's studio we passed this sign. Sweetie said, "I miss Chicago". (Transformers 3 was filmed in Chicago last summer - some of it only blocks away from our house.)
Woof-woof counting money in the courtyard at Cezanne's studio.
I have no pictures of the inside of his studio. They weren't allowed. But it was amazing. After he died in 1909 the studio sat empty and untouched for years until some art students decided that they wanted to make it into a museum. Everything is still essentially still as it was when he died. There weren't any paintings of his in the studio, but all of his stuff was there. All of the jars, vases, skulls, frames, etc... that he painted are still sitting in this house. I spend quite a bit of time watching a screen where images of his paintings were coming up and then looked around the room to see if I could find the item painted in the room. Also, it was fun to see the mountain, Mont Sainte-Victoire, in the distance of Aix. And when you're in that area you can see the inspiration for his village/house paintings. I always thought of it as Spanish, but it's Provence. So fun and so amazing!
Sweetie in front of the studio.
While we headed back to our car we passed this ruin. The romans settled Aix in 123 BC and some of the walls of the city still exist.
Not a great "kid or husband" day, but I loved it!
6 comments:
Ellie: I think that what is wrong with the picture is vegetables and chocolate on the same stand.
Bruce: Veggies anywhere near the chocolate.
On the theme of cultural imperialism... he's Jonesing for the missing Hershey's chocolate!
Ellie: Contrary to KRB, Crunch bar in middle looks like crappy American choco.
Bruce: Choco named with evil name of "Casino."
Ellie's second guess was correct. Do you win for that??? Sweetie thought it was so weird to see a crunch bar in the middle. He just couldn't get over the irony of being in France and being able to buy a yucky Crunch bar.
But Crunch is crappy Swiss Chocolate, thus it can claim to belong on the stand with it's better quality siblings.
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