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An Afternoon in Lourmarin
by Slowlanefrance •
Letters From Provence
Letters from Provence
Back in Aix-en-Provence again, our home away from home
by Slowlanefrance •
By now, our third stay in the second-floor apartment of the solid house our landlady’s grandfather built early in the last century, Kathy and I feel as much at home here as in Lexington. Perhaps more so. Life’s cadence in Aix has a simplicity like no other — the 7-minute walk to the boulangerie for…
FollowFarewell Again to Aix, Our Old and Increasingly Familiar Friend
by Slowlanefrance •
We head home to Boston Saturday, and some of my students reiterated after our game of petanque this evening that they just don’t want to leave Aix-en-Provence yet. My friend Tom, who joined us for our middle week of three, wrote that this was one of the best short vacations he’d ever taken. He promised…
Hiking Beneath the Cliffs of Provence’s Mont Sainte-Victoire
by Slowlanefrance •
“I don’t want to talk to the person who is going to die in approximately 5 minutes,” Devon said, giggling. That would be me. I’d just slipped, bum knee and all, on the way down from Oppidum d’Untinos, the Roman ruin that we’d hiked to above Maison Sainte-Victoire. And Devon, our 8-year-old grand-daughter, was ragging…
The Magic of Aix-En-Provence
by Slowlanefrance •
Nowhere else other than Aix am I able to live so completely in the moment. Perhaps it’s the 35-minute walk each morning down narrow streets to the international school at which my students are studying. It leads me past street signs with exotic names (we live on Avenue d’Indochine), past a restored chateau built for an…
A Geography Lesson on Foot in Aix-en-Provence
by Slowlanefrance •
This gallery contains 11 photos →
Back in Aix: Our Home Away From Home
by Slowlanefrance •
This gallery contains 14 photos →
In Aix, Emerson Students Learn Lessons of Language, Culture
by Slowlanefrance •
I’ve been reading the reflective essays of the Emerson students I took to Aix this May. Some arrived worried about having to speak a language they didn’t know well. Others worried about what might await them living in a foreign household. A few even worried about the unfamiliarity of French food (never my problem). Most…
Aix’s Elegant New Art Center
by Slowlanefrance •
As a place to stroll down narrow, centuries-old streets or to shop for field-fresh food in near-daily markets, the city of Aix-en-Provence is without peer in Provence. Its dozen theaters show first-run films from around the world. And music fills its churches, its sparkling performance center and, often, its main street, Cours Mirabeau. But when…
A Moment of Respite in the Slow Lane
by Slowlanefrance •
I confess. There have been times in the last week that I’ve craved life in the slow lane. This morning, after breakfast with my host family, after two hours planning a seminar, after lunch with my students, after a seminar in the park and after a visit to Aix’s cathedral, I arrived there. By myself. …