(no subject)

Aix is an interesting town, with a lot of history. We got a quick primer yesterday, on a guided walking tour; most of the visible Old Town seems to be seventeenth-century, consisting of tall "hotels" in golden sandstone, facing each other across narrow streets with most of the display going into iron balustrades and ornamental stone trims, but hiding courtyards and gardens inside. We were also shown a hole in the middle of a narrow street, pretty much blocking it, where a routine utility dig turned up both medieval and Roman sewers, one above the other. Our guide was anxious that we not judge the place by the buildings that haven't yet had the grime of the coal era sandblasted away, but I suspect that to a lot of us the grubbier, shabbier buildings were actually more charming than the manicured ones. Little streetcorner shrines, high up on walls, often protected behind bars or wire mesh, are a common sight, as are fountains. The cathedral facade is topped by a figure of St George, skewering a rather small and disturbingly humanoid dragon. The random colossal heads scattered around the place, however, I gather are just part of a temporary exhibition.




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