Aix Goings On

Where the business happens

The joy of life here is in the details. I check in with the view above frequently and it often lures me outside.

​There are the ongoing things; the cavity in the sidewalk where a puddle forms,  allowing me to see how much it's raining. There are the restauranteurs who receive deliveries and put out furniture, the high strung woman at the fifties diner vibe called Betty's Resto, who takes her buggy to the market daily, her impatient actions seeming more American than French.  Often I see a woman with bleached blonde very short hair who works hard on her daily outfits, yet always seems sad in a solitary way. And the lady with the German Shepherd who washes away her dog's pee, which always lands right in the gutter. But I haven't seen the tall and slender man who sometimes wears a black patent leather unitard for a long time.  By far my favorite was a woman and man of mid thirties who met up in front of the cafe below my window. Eschewing the traditional kiss on each cheek, the man, with a big smile on his face, held his right hand in the air and bowed an iota. Her hand met his, he pirouetted her around, she following gracefully, then curtsied. They then sat down and began talking, which happens quite a bit here, the French really are good at it. 

Finally, the rain has gone.the gelato shop has opened, the fish market is back every day and the Chinese tourists are evident on the Cours Mirabeau. The first blush of spring when the grass is so absurdly bright green has come and gone, now it's at the awkward tufty phase, with all the delicious wild flowers popping out their heads. I haven't seen a poppy yet, but there have been irises, orchids, daisies and daisies and daisies, and my favorite this week, wild grape hyacinths. When I hiked up Mt. Ste. Victoire, there were yellow daffodils with heads smaller than a dime. The rosemary, which is everywhere, is ablaze in light purple/periwinkle and little thyme tufts have started blooming dark purple flowers with dark red leaves. There's never any need to buy thyme, rosemary or bay leaves here.

The perfect flower for making a flower crown. Or a daisy chain!

But the big story right now in Aix has received national attention, and more importantly, provided some good viewing out my window. After going down some serious research rabbit holes, I can tell you that there is a Corsican mafia, and that they control many of the businesses in Corsica, from a protection perspective, and that they have expanded to the south of France. At apéro last Friday, I heard conflicting stories about how involved they were, some saying they ran many of the restaurants in Aix to launder drug money, and that you could tell which because there was never anyone in them or they were renovated every year. Furthermore, I was told that it was the Corsican mafia who were responsible for the fire at Les Deux Garçons in 2019, resulting after the owners refused to pay protection money. But then there were others saying other things, so who knows. Les Deux Garçons is wicked famous, Zola and Cezanne, who both hailed from here, used to hang there, as did MFK Fisher and many others. Because it's a historic building, once it burned down, it was required that one of the few historic artisans in the country renovate it, and so it continues, slowly, and will one day re-open and hopefully be just as charming with as many bad-natured waiters, for which they were apparently known.

Anyway, back to the drama here. So, there is the Corsican mafia, and in Marseille there is the North African mafia who control the drugs, Marseille being a main point of entry for Europe. They are responsible for most of the violence you hear about (in a part of Marseille that neither your nor I would ever go to, but Nat did because she took an Uber from the airport and put my street address in for the destination, neglecting to put Aix, and so was taken to that address in Marseille, which wasn't the most savory, especially late at night. She lived to tell the story and her mother aged many years). Well apparently the head honcho of the Corsican mafia and the head honcho of the North African mafia were in the same high security prison and got to networking and bonded, creating a perfect union. So, we've got that going for us,

One of the trials is about two North African brothers whom, after they killed someone, cut the poor sod up into small pieces and put him in the back of a car. As one of the brothers had already escaped from prison once, thanks to a bribed prison guard who also let him know where a certain inmate was located, and who is, ahem, no longer with us, security was tantamount. And the French are a belt and suspenders people.

So, every morning around 7am, I begin to hear walkie talkies and French men sounding authoritative, and when I look, see a few outside the window, holding pedestrians, bikes, scooters and trucks up. We'll then hear a siren in the distance and before you know it, anywhere between 2 and 6 motorcycles with blue lights flashing will come down tiny little Rue Pierre et Marie Curie and then something will follow them. Sometimes it's 6 black vans, sometimes it's a Mercedes sedan, often it's a slew of Gendarmerie cars, and this morning, it was this really scary looking matte black tank-like thing that I'm guessing held the prisoners. This repeats three or four times before 8am every morning, resulting in many many men who appear to be alarmingly casually holding their Remington 870s while talking sports scores to their colleagues (yes, I heard them). There are choppers circling above for a lot of the day and news cameras asking us for opinions, and apparently even the magistrates are searched and screened when they enter the building.  You can read more about it here and hopefully won't go on as deep as dive as I did. ​

Police Nationale at Place du Verdun. Not exactly vigilant, but boy do they look cute in their uniforms.

There have also been municipal elections over the past week. There were I believe 7 candidates, and each of them had a poster put up on the side of town hall, with their party. After the first round, some were eliminated, their poster was removed. The incumbent, Sophie Jossains, a right of center candidate,  received 47% of the vote in the second round, and won. She is the daughter of the former mayor, who was apparently busted for accepting bribes. When sent to prison, the felonious mayor put her daughter Sophie in her stead, and there she has remained. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but I'll say that from my perspective as a visitor/resident, it seems the daughter  does a very good job. There are many many things that go on here, with a large population living and an even larger one visiting. Everything works smoothly, trash is picked up twice a day, everything's clean and orderly pretty much always. There are always areas being improved and there seems to be a fair amount of support for people with those who one might think would be marginalized.

The incumbent

Mt. Ste. Victoire

So, instead of thinking about the world's many different flavors of crazy, we take off every Tuesday with a large pack of dogs and a picnic. Last week, for the first time I had the opportunity to climb up Mt. Ste. Victoire, which always seems to be lurking around, being a bit of a bully with its bigness and greyness. Apparently Cezanne painted it more than 90 times. I can see why, it's hard to miss. It takes about two hours to climb, and there were about 15 of us, stopping half way up because it was hot . We didn't want to carry all our layers, so took them off and hid them behind a bush. Almost at the top is a little chapel, which, when you've just experienced the steepness and not so easy rocks that need to be climbed over to get there, is a miracle. I couldn't stop wondering how everything had been brought up there. Later, someone told me the rock was blown out to make bricks. 

We could see the snow covered Alps so clearly

Where the rock was blown out

Inside the wee chapel

Lunch outside the chapel

Others climbed up to the cross, which was another 20 minutes, but by then, I had tripped up the hill and banged both my knees, concerned that I wouldn't be able to get down without someone carrying me or a chopper coming.  Fortunately it wasn't so bad,  made my way down slowly and even did some sliding on my butt. Forgot about my layers, but one of the kind people brought them down for me. All's well that ends well, but I keep seeing that cross at the top and it's challenging me, I need to get there. 

Today we climbed up into the hills above Marseille where Marcel Pagnol, the creator of Jeanne de Florette and Manon of the Spring was from. We had a view of the whole city and the islands out in the harbor. There  were many of us and we straggled along, chatting, having lunch, taking photographs and agreeing that it was the best way to spend a Tuesday.

Today's hiking crew less me

Cave

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House in the Hopital neighborhood, where I was scoping out a flat. I found out my place is on the market...