Explorer Aix-en-Provence

The Cours Mirabeau is the main avenue of Aix-en-Provence, laid out from 1649 on the line of the old southern ramparts and named after Mirabeau in 1876. About 440 metres long and 42 metres wide, it is lined with double rows of plane trees, 17th- and 18th-century mansions and cafés, with fountains along it and the Fontaine de la Rotonde at its western end.

Caumont Centre d'Art occupies the Hôtel de Caumont, an 18th-century mansion in the Mazarin quarter of Aix-en-Provence, begun in 1715 to plans by Robert de Cotte. Culturespaces restored it and opened it in 2015; visitors see the period salons, the stairway and the garden, and two temporary exhibitions a year devoted to major painters.

The Pavillon Vendôme is a 17th-century pavilion in Aix-en-Provence, built from 1665 for Louis de Mercœur, Duke of Vendôme, with a façade of three classical orders and two carved atlantes at the door. The collector Henri Dobler left it to the city in 1941; today it is a municipal museum with period rooms and art exhibitions, set in a French formal garden.

Aix Cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Saviour, stands on the site of the Roman forum of Aix-en-Provence and was built and rebuilt from the 12th to the 19th century. It joins a Romanesque nave, a Gothic nave and west front, a baptistery from about 500 with reused Roman columns, and a Romanesque cloister that volunteers show on guided visits.

The Musée Granet is the art and archaeology museum of Aix-en-Provence, opened in 1838 in the former priory of the Knights of Malta beside the church of Saint-Jean-de-Malte. It is named after the painter François Marius Granet, who left it his collection in 1849, and shows European paintings, sculpture, works by Cézanne and finds from the Entremont oppidum.

Cézanne's Studio is the house on the Lauves hill north of Aix-en-Provence where Paul Cézanne worked from 1902 until his death in 1906. The upper-floor studio, lit by a large glazed wall, keeps his easels, furniture and the objects that appear in his last still lifes; the house stands in a garden of olive and fig trees and is run by the city as a museum.

The Bastide du Jas de Bouffan is an 18th-century country house on the west side of Aix-en-Provence, bought by Paul Cézanne's father in 1859. The painter lived and worked here for about 40 years, painted murals in the main salon and painted the house, its park and its chestnut avenue many times. Now owned by the city, it is under restoration and opens for visits in season.