To explore the network of jumbled little lanes and narrow roads that make up the heart of Aix, wander north from leafy cours Mirabeau to anywhere within the ring of cours and boulevards. The layout of Vieil Aix is not designed to assist your sense of direction, but it hardly matters when there's a fountained square to rest at every 50m and a continuous architectural backdrop of treats from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On Saturdays, and to a lesser extent on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the centre is taken up with markets : fruit and veg on place Richelme; fish on rue des Marseillais; flowers on place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville; clothes on rues Peyresc, Rifle-Rafle, Bouteilles, Chaudronniers and Monclar; a flea market on place de Verdun; and food on place des Prêcheurs and place de la Madeleine.

 

The church of the Madeleine (closed Sun evening), on the central place des Précheurs, is decorated with paintings by Rubens and Van Loo (who was born in Aix in 1684), and a three-panel medieval Annunciation . On place Richelme, a delicate though fairly massive foot hangs over the architrave of the old corn exchange, now the post office . It belongs to the goddess Cybele, dallying with the masculine River Rhône. Just to the north, the Hôtel de Ville displays perfect classical proportions and embroidery in wrought iron above the door.

Rue Gaston-de-Saporta takes you up from place Hôtel-de-Ville to the Cathédrale St-Sauveur , a conglomerate of fifteenth- to sixteenth-century building, full of medieval art treasures. The best of these is a triptych commissioned by King René in 1475, Le Buisson Ardent , whose side panels are regularly opened up by the sacristan (daily except Tues & Sun), revealing an elaborately depicted Mary and Child in a burning bush.

A short way down from the cathedral, through place des Martyrs-de-la-Résistance, is the former bishop's palace, the Ancien Archevêché , housing the Musée des Tapisseries (Wed-Sun 10am-noon & 2-5.45pm; 10F/¬1.53), a superb collection that includes a contemporary section, for which the definition of tapestry is broadened to include textiles made of rope, raffia or feathers. The Musée du Vieil Aix at 17 rue Gaston-de-Saporta (Tues-Sun: April-Dec 10am-noon & 2.30-6pm; rest of year 10am-noon & 2-5pm; 15F/¬2.29) could be worth a glance while you're in this part of town. It has a set of religious marionettes and a huge collection of santons (Provençal crib figures).