Day 4

It was hard to wake up this morning, with stiff legs, and aching shoulders from lugging our backpacks up and down all the steps in paris. First things first, breakfast at the cafe next door. Two "Duo Cafe" deals. 2€20 for an espresso and a fresh croissant. Breakfast for under 5$. Then we went straight for the huge markets. A quick stroll through a street of fruit, veg, and spice vendors, then a walk through the vintage and antique, a little too early so all the vendors were still setting up. A loop through the main street, while pausing to admire some amazing fountains (there are soooo many here) and browsing through some clothing vendors. We did our best to be good about money, so did not purchase too many things, but took another look at the antiques and back to the food vendors for an early snack/lunch. A small basket of raspberries, a basket of strawberries, and some assorted aix-en-provence olives. We ate this lovely feast on a bench near another beautiful fountain. We proceeded to get very lost on our search for the tapestry/strange cut out opera puppets museum. We may have been lost but we made the best of it and took lots of pictures of the beautiful alleys, houses, and made friends with a wandering cat. We found the tapestry museum and were excited to find out it was free! No pictures allowed though. Beautiful old tapestries and furniture, strange cut out opera figures. We headed towards the center of town and stopped by the market of flowers, and to see the gorgeous clock tower, with figures representing each season. We set out wandering again and stopped for a macaroon from a shop specializing in them. 1 regular chocolate, and 1 fresh fig. Both great, but fig macaroons win. Back to the hotel for a few minutes rest and to cool off, its almost 30 degrees here. And we decided to treat ourselves to a real authentic french dinner. 3 courses of amazing. We only snapped a shot of the steak et frites, but it was all great. The server was away alot so in total we probably ate for 2 hours, walked around the city a little bit more, grabbed some snacks for later and headed back to the hostel. Aix is beautiful. Hopefully Nice will be even more so.

Erin&Will