Our last port of call on the ship was to Toulon in France.  There apparently wasn’t a lot to do or see in the town of Toulon, as the ship offered tours to everywhere else.  We opted to go to Aix en Provence for the morning.

We were shown around by a lovely guide, then had a bit of time to look around ourselves.

Aix en Provence is home to 100s of fountains – some are still running, but others are dried up and purely ornamental now.

It was a beautiful day – not as hot (as some of you will be happy to know.  I know I was!) and the shadiness of the trees and little streets helped with that issue as well.

Our guide told us a story about how a chunk of a this building (on the right) fell off and killed a passer by (he assured us that it wasn’t a tourist, but a local person, which made it alright).  Then he showed us what the buildings are made of (see left).  It’s sandstone and quite easy to chip away with your fingers.

Then he guided us down a little alley street called “Scratch your Elbows Street”

The whole town is quite small and very quaint.  This poor chap was happily sitting in the square doing a spot of painting, minding his own business when our tour group descended on his space and stood in front of what he was painting!

There was a lovely market with fresh produce – all of which was too hard to purchase and pack!

This one lady on our tour witnessed everything through her phone screen, which was attached to her selfie stick.  When I had a look – the camera was turned around the other way, so she was actually looking at herself (with me in the background!)

In this lovely town, they have this mini 4 person cart/bus to transport people from one end of town to the other and if you are over 65 – it’s free.

Then we wondered around town on our own.  The guide said it was impossible to get lost in  Aix, so we thought we’d give it a try…

1820 – so old!

Fountains everywhere – so quaint!

And the cheese – don’t get me started on the cheese!  This whole street was filled with the aroma of fromage.

Then what else to do but to sit with a shandy in hand and watch the world go by?