Aix-en-Provence

Aix is an inland town about 30km from the sea, so swimming is always a day out rather than part of the stay. The nearest water is the Mediterranean around Marseille: the small city beaches and the coves of the Cote Bleue to the west, and Cassis and the calanques to the east, all within about an hour by car. In high summer the sea reaches about 23°C, though the mistral can churn it up and chill it for a few days. Beaches here are mostly small, pebbly or rocky inlets and fill up quickly in August.

Without a car the trip means a bus or train to Marseille and then a local connection. Many visitors swim in their hotel or villa pool instead.

Eating in Aix follows the Provencal market rhythm. Every morning stalls of vegetables, goat's cheese, olives, herbs and charcuterie set up on Place Richelme and around the Palais de Justice, and lunch is the meal that counts: long terrace meals of tapenade, daube, grilled fish, tians of vegetables and chilled rose from the Coteaux d'Aix vineyards on the edge of town. The calisson, a lozenge of almond paste and candied melon, is the local sweet, sold in old confiseries all over the centre.

The old town has a good spread of bistros and a few serious restaurants, along with café terraces on the Cours Mirabeau and the small squares. Range is limited beyond French and Mediterranean cooking, and the busiest terraces trade on their setting more than their kitchens.

Aix is above all a beautiful town to look at. The Cours Mirabeau, shaded by plane trees and lined with mossy fountains, divides the medieval old town from the Mazarin quarter, a grid of honey-coloured hotels particuliers built for the parliamentary nobility of the 17th and 18th centuries. Fountains turn up on almost every square, and the Cathedrale Saint-Sauveur combines Romanesque, Gothic and baroque work with a Merovingian baptistery.

Paul Cezanne is the town's great name. His studio at Les Lauves is kept as he left it, and the family house at the Jas de Bouffan and the quarries at Bibemus are open to visit. The Musee Granet holds old masters and a modern collection, and the Hotel de Caumont and the Pavillon de Vendome add fine interiors. It is two or three days of sightseeing at a gentle pace, not a week.

With a large university population, Aix has more evening life than its size suggests, but it is a terrace town rather than a going-out town. Evenings centre on the bars around Place des Cardeurs, Forum des Cardeurs and the lanes behind the town hall, where students and locals drink outside on warm nights. There are a few cocktail and wine bars and a handful of small clubs, but things wind down well before dawn and term breaks make the town noticeably quieter. Anyone after a real club night heads to Marseille.

The limestone ridge of Montagne Sainte-Victoire, Cezanne's mountain, rises just east of town, with trails to the Croix de Provence and the Prieure on the summit and reservoirs at its foot. Within an hour lie the Calanques, white cliffs and turquoise inlets between Marseille and Cassis that make some of the finest coastal walking in the Mediterranean, along with sea kayaking. The Luberon and the Alpilles offer cycling among vineyards, olive groves and lavender, and the Gorges du Verdon, a deep canyon for kayaking and hiking, is about an hour and a half away.

Spring and autumn are the seasons for it. In midsummer the heat is fierce, and the massifs and the Calanques are often closed on high fire-risk days. A car makes most of this far easier.

Aix is one of the best bases in Provence. Marseille, with its old port, Le Panier and Notre-Dame de la Garde, is about half an hour away. The TGV reaches Avignon and its Palais des Papes in about twenty minutes, and Arles, with its Roman arena and Van Gogh connections, is about an hour by road. A little further, Nimes and the Pont du Gard round out a remarkable stretch of Roman heritage.

For villages, the Luberon is within an hour: Gordes, Roussillon with its ochre cliffs, Menerbes, Lourmarin and the abbey of Senanque in its lavender. Saint-Remy and Les Baux sit in the Alpilles, and the fishing port of Cassis is on the coast. Wine estates of the Coteaux d'Aix and Bandol are close. Towns are easy by train or bus, but the villages really need a car.

Aix is easy and safe with children: the centre is largely pedestrian, the fountains and plane-tree squares make good stopping points, and the morning markets and ice cream keep younger ones happy. Beyond that, the town offers little that is aimed at them. The sights are mansions, museums and Cezanne's studio, and summer afternoons are very hot. Families usually stay in a villa or hotel with a pool and drive out to the zoo at La Barben, the coast or the Luberon for days out. Older children who enjoy walking will like Sainte-Victoire and the Calanques.

Within Aix a visitor walks everywhere. The old town, the Mazarin quarter and the Cours Mirabeau fit in a small, mostly pedestrian area, and only Cezanne's studio and the Fondation Vasarely sit a short climb or bus ride outside it. Small electric shuttles thread the narrow lanes.

Going further is less simple. Regional buses link the centre with Marseille and its airport, and the local train runs to Marseille, but the TGV station is on the plateau well outside town and needs a shuttle bus. The countryside villages are poorly served by public transport, so most visitors exploring Provence hire a car. Parking in the centre is tight; use the underground car parks on the edge of the old town.

Shopping in Aix is a pleasant part of wandering the old town. The lanes around Rue d'Italie, Rue Fabrot and Rue Espariat hold French fashion and shoe boutiques, delicatessens and homeware shops, and the open-air Allees Provencales add high-street chains at the foot of the centre. The markets are the real draw: produce every morning, plus textile and bric-a-brac stalls and a flower market on the main squares on market days.

Typical things to take home are calissons, santons (the painted clay crib figures of Provence, with a large fair in December), olive-wood ware, Marseille soap and Provencal printed fabrics. There is no luxury shopping to speak of and no major department store.

Aix is one of the more expensive towns in the south of France. Hotels in and near the old town are few and command high rates, especially in July, when the opera festival fills the town, and much of the accommodation is in boutique hotels and country houses rather than budget options. Terrace dining on the Cours Mirabeau costs more than the food deserves, while lunch menus in the back streets are fairer. Market picnics, walking everywhere and cheap regional buses help, but a car for the countryside adds to the bill.

Every July the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence turns the town into one of the great addresses of the opera world, with new productions in the open-air courtyard of the Archbishop's Palace and in the town's theatres, plus concerts across the centre. Tickets for the main productions sell out early.

The rest of the year is smaller but real. The Grand Theatre de Provence hosts touring orchestras, opera and dance; the Pavillon Noir is home to Ballet Preljocaj, one of France's leading contemporary dance companies; and the 18th-century Theatre du Jeu de Paume puts on plays and concerts. There is a spring Easter classical festival and some jazz in bars, but for a large live-music scene people go to Marseille.

Aix was founded by the Romans as Aquae Sextiae for its warm springs, and the water still flows through the town: some of the fountains run warm, including the moss-covered Fontaine d'Eau Chaude on the Cours Mirabeau. The Thermes Sextius spa stands on the site of the Roman baths and offers thermal pools and treatments, and a few country-house hotels nearby have good spas.

The bigger restorative draw is pace. Long lunches, mornings at the market and slow afternoons under the plane trees set the rhythm, and outside July the town is calm. It is a place to slow down rather than a bathing destination, and there is no tradition of public baths beyond that one spa.