Cours Mirabeau

Aix-en-Provence


No streetscape better epitomises Provence’s most graceful city than this 440m-long, fountain-studded street, sprinkled with Renaissance hôtels particuliers (private mansions) and crowned with a summertime roof of leafy plane trees. It was laid out in the 1650s and later named after the Revolutionary hero the Comte de Mirabeau. Cézanne and Zola hung out at Les Deux Garçons, one of a string of busy pavement cafes.

Among the most impressive hôtels particuliers is Hôtel d’Espagnet (1647) at No 38, a masterpiece of the Aix baroque style built for a successful cloth merchant who rose to the aristocracy.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Aix-en-Provence attractions

1. Caumont Centre d’Art

0.06 MILES

The Caumont is a stellar art space housed inside the Mazarin quarter’s grandest 18th-century hôtel particulier (mansion). While there are three quality…

2. Fontaine d’Eau Chaude

0.09 MILES

Dating to 1667, this small fountain, the first along the Cours Mirabeau, is fed by 18ºC spring water that encourages the diversity of greenery with which…

3. Vieil Aix

0.09 MILES

One of Aix' great charms is its historical centre: ramble through it, drinking in divine streetscapes as you choose which historical, cultural or culinary…

4. Place des Quatre Dauphins

0.13 MILES

This especially charming square in the Quartier Mazarin has a baroque fountain (1667) with water-spouting dolphins.

5. Fontaine de la Rotonde

0.13 MILES

Built in 1860 as the centrepiece to the place de la Rotonde, the roundabout at the western edge of Cours Mireabeau, this magnificent fountain is adorned…

6. Fontaine du Roi René

0.14 MILES

In the centre of cours Mirabeau is this lovely sculpted fountain from 1823, depicting the 15th-century king holding muscat grapes (which he reputedly…

7. Musée Granet

0.25 MILES

Aix established one of France's first public museums here, on the site of a former Hospitallers' priory, in 1838. Nearly 200 years of acquisitions …

8. Église St-Jean de Malte

0.25 MILES

This 13th-century Gothic church in Aix’s Quartier Mazarin, built as a fortified place of worship by the Knights Hospitaller, was the first of its kind in…

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