By aixcentric If like me you enjoy browsing in Book In Bar and appreciate their wide and thoughtful choice of books in English, spare a thought for them at the moment. Rue Joseph Cabassol is being re-paved plus there are major works ongoing to transform the Hotel Caumont opposite into …

By aixcentric It’s our annual opportunity to see films we have missed during the past year – Télérama magazine picks out the 14 they think were the best during 2014. Each will be shown once, either at the Renoir or Mazarin, from 21-27th January. If you clip the coupon out …

By aixcentric 2015 will see the production of ‘Les Insépérables’, a film on the early lives of Paul Cézanne and Emile Zola who famously met at school in Aix. Cézanne will be played by Guillaume Gallienne and Zola by Guillaume Canet when shooting starts in September. Filming will take place …

By aixcentric What a wonderful subject for next year’s show at the Carrieres de Lumieres. ‘Leonardo de Vinci, Michel-Ange, Raphael: Les Géants de la Renaissance’ takes the visitor on a journey starting in Milan. It then goes to Florence where Raphael and Leonardo were painting portraits and Madonnas, then to …

By aixcentric Happy New Year to all! And it’s good to start 2015 on a positive note: it looks like there is some movement, at last, to restore the bastide that was home to the Cezanne family for 4 decades. Paul Cezanne’s father built the artist a studio on the …

Today, we see the launch of a new direct train service between Marseille and Milan by thello. It takes just over seven hours, and the train calls in at all major stations on the Cote D’Azur, then Italian centres like Ventimiglia, San Remo, Genoa and Milan. Costs between 30-70€ each …

By aixcentric Booking has opened today for this new service which will be the first time the Eurostar, in its 20+years existence, has gone as far as the Med. It starts 1st May and services will be twice a week, increasing to five times a week during the summer. It …

By aixcentric If you are in Marseille for the Christmas lights and market, you may like to drop into the new exhibition at the Maison de l’Artisanat which is showing three centuries of seasonal objects from St Petersbourg. Fine china and costumes are arranged in tableaux taking the visitor back …

By aixcentric Today is the feast day of Saint Barbara – Sainte-Barbe – and in Provence, the day for planting blé d’ésperance ready for the Christmas table. If you are new to Aix, these are the corn-seeds currently being sold from makeshift stalls – and grocery shops – usually for …

By aixcentric Opening on November 26th, La French is the latest film starring Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin – and it’s set in Marseille. He plays a French police magistrate sent to Marseille to bring to book a powerful drugs ring which, apart from the usual malfaiteurs, includes local police and government …