Aix-en-Provence

Aix was founded in 123 BC by the Roman consul Sextius Calvinus, after the destruction of the nearby Gallic hill fort of Entremont, and took its name, Aquae Sextiae, from its springs and its founder. In 102 BC the Romans under Gaius Marius defeated the Ambrones and Teutones nearby. The town became the metropolis of a Roman province in the 4th century, then was occupied by the Visigoths in 477 and plundered by Franks and Lombards in the following century.

In the Middle Ages Aix was the capital of Provence, and after the 12th century, under the houses of Barcelona and Anjou, it became an artistic centre and a seat of learning; Louis II of Anjou chartered its university in 1409. It passed to the French crown with the rest of Provence in 1487, and in 1501 Louis XII established the parliament of Provence here, which sat until 1789. The magistrates and nobles of the parliament built the mansions that still line the old town, and in the second half of the 17th century Archbishop Michele Mazzarino laid out the Quartier Mazarin to the south of the new Cours Mirabeau.

Paul Cézanne was born in Aix and made the Montagne Sainte-Victoire, which overlooks a small dam built by Émile Zola's father, a favourite subject throughout his life. In September 1939 a tile factory at Les Milles became an internment camp. The city was part of Marseille-Provence European Capital of Culture in 2013, and in 2019 lost the interior of its most famous brasserie, Les Deux Garçons, to fire.

Aix's culture rests on its painter and its music. Cézanne's studio, his father's house at the Jas de Bouffan and a walking trail through the places he knew draw visitors from around the world, and the Musée Granet holds works by him alongside Ingres, Rembrandt and the Planque collection of modern art. The composer Darius Milhaud was born in Aix, and the conservatoire named after him, designed by Kengo Kuma, opened for 2013.

The Aix-en-Provence Festival, founded in 1948, is an international festival devoted mainly to opera, staged each late June and July in the open-air theatre of the archbishop's palace, the restored 18th-century Théâtre du Jeu de Paume and the Grand Théâtre de Provence. In June, Musique dans la Rue fills streets and courtyards with concerts, and the Ballet Preljocaj has been based in the city since 1996.

Provençal traditions survive: older street signs are in Provençal and French, santons — hand-made crib figures — are still produced, and the calisson makers parade at the annual blessing of their sweets. Sport ranges from Provence Rugby to the handball club in the French top flight and the Argonautes, one of the country's most successful American football teams.

The commune had about 150,000 inhabitants in 2023, making it the second-largest town in the Bouches-du-Rhône after Marseille, with which it shares an urban area of almost two million people. It is a subprefecture and the seat of an important court of appeal, and a large share of residents are students of Aix-Marseille University, Sciences Po Aix, Arts et Métiers and many international programmes.

The economy has moved from flour-milling, hats and matches to tourism, education and research, opera and dance, software and the microchip industry at nearby Rousset. Olive oil, calissons, santons and the wines of the Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence keep older trades alive, and many residents commute to Marseille on the frequent shuttle buses.

The old town is lived in as well as visited: residents shop at the morning markets, meet on café terraces and walk the pedestrian streets in the evening. Newer districts and suburbs spread out across the plain beyond the ring road. Traffic on the roads into the city and high housing costs are everyday concerns.

Aix's best-known food is the calisson, a smooth, pale yellow paste of candied fruit — especially melon and orange — and ground almonds, topped with a thin layer of royal icing and usually shaped like an almond. The city has long been its home, and most of the world's supply is still made in Provence. Each September the sweets are blessed at Saint-Jean-de-Malte. Chocolate is made at Puyricard in the hills to the north, and saffron is grown organically near the city.

Markets are central to eating in Aix. A small food market fills Place Richelme every morning, and the bigger markets take over the old town's squares and the Cours Mirabeau several mornings a week, with the largest on Saturday. The cafés of the Cours Mirabeau, where Les Deux Garçons drew Cézanne, Zola and Hemingway, are the place to watch the city go by.

Olive oil is still pressed locally. The wines are those of the Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence appellation, from vineyards between the city and the Durance, and the small Palette appellation just east of the city. Producers gather for a wine fair on the Cours Mirabeau on the last Sunday in July.