June 16: Walking history tour of Aix, Santon Fouque workshop

Another lovely summer day in the south of France! Today, we met our students in Aix to spend time walking through this beautiful medieval city. Lucky for us, Sagine’s French correspondante, Hèléne, who lives in the old city, graciously led us on a tour of interesting buildings, squares, and churches. 

Founded by the Romans, Aix-en-Provence still features the original layout from ancient times, and is filled with fountains, squares shaded by plane trees, La Rotonde fountai,n and the famous Cours Mirabeau. Students had time to shop at an outdoor food market and get some pastry at the famous Patisserie Weibel. We visited Place Richelme, Place de Cadeurs, and the Pavillon Vendôme, among others.

After a long break for lunch so that students could choose one of the many cafes, our group walked to the Santon Fouque workshop. Santons are local hand-painted terracotta figurines that originally represented the nativity scenes and have, in the past hundred years, expanded to include traditional country peoples of the Provençal region. The Santon Fouque is a family-owned workshop and the primary producer in the region. After a short lecture and demonstration of how the figurines were made, students could watch family members painting in the workshop and make some purchases in the shop. 

Tomorrow we are off to Marseille!