Aix-en-Provence Facts

Cours Mirabeau is Aix's main thoroughfare. The left side of the Cours leads to the Palais de Justice (judicial center), which carries into the Town Hall area and Aix's old town before coming to the city's Sextius district. On the right side of Cours Mirabeau, Mazarin is the first area you come to and thereafter the area of Carnot, which is sandwiched between Sextius to the north and the university district to the south. The immediate outskirts of the city are divided up geographically and are described here as northern, southern, western and eastern Aix .

Mirabeau

A walk along Cours Mirabeau (laid out in 1651), with its many fountains and abundance of greenery, is an essential part of a visit to...

...Founded in 122 B.C. by a Roman general, Caius Sextius Calvinus, who named it Aquae Sextiae after himself, Aix (pronounced "ex") has been, in turn, a Roman military outpost, a civilian colony, the administrative capital of a later Roman Empire province, the seat of an archbishop, and the official residence of the medieval comtes de Provence. After the union of Provence with France, Aix remained until the Revolution a judicial and administrative headquarters.

The celebrated son of this old capital city of Provence, Paul Cézanne immortalized the countryside nearby. Just as he painted it, Montagne Ste-Victoire looms over the town today, though a string of high-rises has now cropped up on the landscape....