Tag Archives: Exploring France

Aug8

The Musee Granet

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Tuesday, 09-July-2024


The two main attractions of Aix en Provence were the Méjanes library, and the Musee Granet.

The library was just a “walk up and check it out” situation, so we visited it first, after finding suitable parking… but the Musee, well, we had a feeling it may be a bit more of an adventure. We found some food, steeled ourselves, and charged inward to glorious art!



There was a lot of art.

Three floors of art, if I recall correctly, complete with a cool sub-basement that held (as is tradition) my favorite pieces in the museum. Not the most famous, or the weirdest, but definitely my favorites.

It was lovely; the main gallery was primarily religious, which isn’t quite my jam, but it was definitely interesting walking through and reading about all the details – Everything was purely in French, so I’ll include my translation-photos along for clarification. Of interesting note – one of the paintings, from 1661, is actually the first French portrait of a hunter! Kind of neat, showing how the vocation evolved over time.

Ohh also there was a sculpture of a guy without skin, from a doctor’s office in 1853. So… that’s a thing I’ve seen, now.



We perused, walked, explored, and enjoyed. We were able to make our way pretty much completely through the museum before getting saturated, too, which was a nice change of pace for me… by the time we were getting hungry, we’d finished up and were ready to head back to Cassis for some lovely dinner by the lapping waves.

Aug8

Exploring Aix en Provence and Public Library Les Méjanes

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Tuesday, 09-July-2024


One of the stops on our adventures, a bit away from Cassis, was Aix en Provence.

See, my Mom had seen some interesting articles about spots to visit, and found that a few were in Aix… which would involve a short-ish drive into the countryside, a perfect counterpoint to the general relaxing that we were aiming to do in Cassis itself. We poked around online, locked in two spots to visit, and headed out!


The drive itself was lovely – mainly highways, to be sure, but still through the French countryside. Vineyards, castles, and picturesquely abandoned farmhouses dotted our path. The roadsigns were… vaguely helpful, at least enough that I was mostly able to navigate my way. I did take one major wrong turn on the drive home, but that was it – and thankfully it only added 20min or so to the drive, which wasn’t the worst thing ever.

I’ll put up a few other posts for the main attractions that we visited in Aix, and focus on the town itself here – It wasn’t quite as touristy as Cassis, but that’s really not saying much since Cassis is like 90% tourist, whereas Aix seemed to be 80%. There were lovely bookshops, cool postcard spots, amazing fountains and wide boulevards.

Walking was easy, and the sun was bright… but thankfully there was enough shade (and enough fountains) to keep us cool enough. Food abounded, as did helpful shop owners, and we had an excellent time throughout the day. Heartily recommend!




Now, a quick side note – the Public Library Les Méjanes (Cité du Livre)

It’s gorgeous, and was all the rage on Instagram / Facebook a bit ago. The library facade is a beautiful vertical stack of books; super cool, and super picturesque… and super under construction. I was able to get some pictures, regardless of the workers and barricades and construction trucks, but… not a whole lot, and none as fancy as those that were trending and viral and all those cool terms.

Still – absolutely cool Library, and worth visiting. If only for the excellent selection and neat open-air interior.

Aug6

Exploring Cassis

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Saturday, 06-July-2024 through 18-July-2024



I explored Cassis!

Technically this started before any of my previous posts… but I wanted to set the stage before we dove into the play itself. Seems right, you know?


So Cassis.

Small town on the French Riviera. The Cote De Azur, in French. A tourist town, a fishing town, and a sea-side town down by the Mediterranean. An absolutely cute town, with a billion different restaurants and shops and other great places to walk and explore.

Small alleyways with beautiful growing plants. A few friendly cats to say hi to. Limestone streets, worn smooth by countless sandals, with day markets and night markets every so often.

Siestas halfway through the day, to avoid the midday heat, followed by late-evening dinners that last past sundown.

It wasn’t a bad spot. Daniel picked well, when he first proposed the trip back in 2014, and I followed up beautifully when suggesting my Mom and Steve come visiting.



Keeping with Tradition, I kept a list of the various places that I, and we, ate. There’s a lot of them, so bear with me:

  • Le Luminyen – Actually by the University of Luminy, I ate here after my walk up Mt. Pugot. Still, very good and worth visiting for a snack
  • Alcazar – My first meal in Cassis itself. Excellent food, though a bit unexpected… I ordered Fries and Paella… but the “Fries” were actually fried Sardines! Unexpected, but delicious.
  • Le Delphine – A quick and simple brunch, with pastries and fried eggs and a latte. Can’t complain… but I found that eggs aren’t really a breakfast thing in Cassis, unless they’re in a quiche.
  • Midday Express – Excellent hot sandwiches, quick and easy and great for taking before my hikes into Les Calanques
  • La Voûte – Great rissoto, mediocre burgers. Lesson learned here – In France, order French food. Or Italian, if you’re in Cassis. But don’t order American… it’s just not worth it.
  • Bistro’quai – Solid food, though I frankly can’t recall any real details here.
  • Le 8 et demi – Means “8.5” in French, though I’d give them a solid 10. Great pizza, great food, excellent Crepes. We went here at least 3 times, if I remember right.
  • Nomade – Amazing bakery. Seriously, simply glorious croissants, pain au chocolate, everything.
  • Le Petit Oyster Bar – Excellent oysters, glorious mussels, amazing charcuterie boards… what more could you want? Ohh right, great wine! It’s France, of course there’s great wine!
  • La Tarte Tropézienne – Amazing place, went quite a few times to pick up pastries for breakfast and tartes for dessert!
  • La Stazione – Excellent Italian food in the heart of a French town. Good pasta, good wine, good times!