La Place d’Albertas, Aix-en-Provence

…my next stop this afternoon as I gradually make my way by train south from meetings in the Netherlands to a long awaited pilgrimage to Italy’s mysterious heel of Puglia (before continuing on to autumn obligations for projects and talks in Istanbul, London, Den Haag, Reno, Philadelphia, Princeton, New York, Budapest, Sofia, Lodz) – and having never been to Aix – and since the TGV comes here non-stop from Paris – and being curious about the local landscape, and agriculture, and food – here I am – and the first place I happen upon is the pretty lovely La Place d’Albertas, mostly because it is paved entirely in big rough round rocks, like the wilderness has come into the center of town unrefined, a little quiet glimmer of what I was hoping for here amongst the otherwise bourgeois filled boutiques and well heeled end of season tourist mobs.