Boutiques, Bistros and Purple Blooms – Provence in the Spring.

Julia Gasper 19/12/2007

A visitor to Aix-en-Provence at this time of year returns to Oxford to reflect on how differently the two cities present themselves to tourists. The city of Aix in southern France is no warmer than Oxford in early Spring and has a fair amount of rain, but how much warmer its welcome is to visitors! Oxford is a mass of road-works and buildings in progress from one side to the other, and every year the town centre is blocked by some new jungle of scaffolding and girders. Aix seems to be a perfectly well-maintained city yet there was only building-site in the middle. Its city centre, the splendidly wide avenue of the Cours Mirabeau, is not officially a pedestrian precinct, yet it is a far more pleasant place to sit and linger over a drink and watch the world go by than our scruffy, chaotic Cornmarket. Cars creep politely down the middle of the Cours Mirabeau at five miles per hour, while people stroll along the pavements, wide as a boulevard, enjoying the fine shops and restaurants, and the sight of each other. There seem to be few of the narrow, cobbled streets of the old part of Aix that actually ban cars, but drivers intrepid enough to go there have to sneak through the pedestrians who take priority and wander unconcerned.

Of course Aix, like Oxford, has its diabolical one-way system and the best way to get anywhere by car is to set out in the exact opposite direction. Otherwise you are forced out of the city and directed to the nearest airport. French drivers are aggressive and honk their horns at other drivers who hesitate for a moment or get in their way. But on the whole, I still think that pedestrians have got the balance of power right in Aix. And nobody has seen the necessity for pulling down any of the 18^th and 19^th-century buildings in the centre to make way for multi-storey car-parks or the sort of Disney-style toy-town architecture we have in Gloucester Green, and close to Folly Bridge.

From a café table in the Cours Mirabeau one can contemplate the statue of Aix’s hero, Good King René, the last monarch of Provence before France took over in the sixteenth century. Street names are written in Provençal as well as French, providing a touch of nostalgia for Provence’s independent past. There are delightful little statues of saints placed in niches usually on the corners, at first-floor level. There is also a very bold and powerful memorial to the Armenians massacred by the Turks in the early 20^th-century. Aix seems to have some special bond with the Armenians, as it is the only provincial town I have ever been to with an Armenian restaurant.

Aix is a city of fountains, and each one is different. You come across them in little squares and modest lanes, pouring out clear and drinkable water day and night. There is no excuse for anyone buying water in plastic bottles here. Some of the springs are warm, hence Aix was a spa in Roman times which is why it is twinned with Bath – lucky Bath! – while Oxford has to make do with cold, dull Grenoble. For every one decent restaurant in Grenoble, Aix has a dozen small, authentic bistros and recantous offering Provencal specialities. Of course there also Lebanese, Moroccan, Algerian, Chinese, and the trendy pizza-pasta-cocktail establishments favoured by the young. The traditional café with proper cups, proper seats and the newspapers has stubbornly survived there against the attacks of burger-chains. Amazingly, so has the small boutique-grocery with fresh vegetables, ham, pate, sausages and locally produced wine. There are plenty of these and they are thriving. Whereas Oxford has a farmers’ market only once a month, Aix has one three times a week, right in front of the Hotel de Ville. There are stalls selling flowers, herbs and perfumes as well as bread, almond cakes, huge piles of fresh oysters, purple artichokes and giant bulbs of garlic in the same hue. The purple garlic of Provence is a hundred-watt bulb, compared to the dim night-light of English supermarket garlic.

Purple seems to be the colour of Spring in Aix, for while Oxford has its wonderful magnolias, Aix has its purple-flowering Judas-trees that stand out in the spring sunshine with a fierce glow. Just one can give a jagged blot of colour in a landscape or a quiet street. I would not be surprised if the reason it is so popular there is that its flowers can actually be eaten in salads or made into fritters, the traditional beignets à la Dauphine. If this seems a strange use of flowers, reflect on how delectably the French flavour crème brulée with lavender, another speciality of Provence, and purple-flowering too.

Beggars in Aix work hard. Some of them wait until unsuspecting people at a café are sipping their drinks, then embark on a noisy rendition of their poetry resembling a harangue rather than a poem. Eventually the hearers offer some random contribution to ensure that the performance comes to an end. Old ladies sidle up to you in bars and try to sell you towels and linen. If you haggle, the price comes down dramatically. Then of course there are the traditional beggars who just sit on the steps of the cathedral and wait for tourists to come out in a charitable frame of mind, to exchange a small coin for a blessing. Are beggars now forced to work only a 35-hour week? Who knows? It would not surprise me.

Returning to Oxford, the first farmers’ market of the month happens to fall on a day of radiant sunshine and the Spring flowers are at their best. The atmosphere is busy and positive. But there is still so much that we could learn from the Aixois about how to make a small city into a really people-friendly environment where quality of life is paramount.