Difficulty at the Beginning in Beautiful Aix-en-Provence

On the Cours Mirabeau. I am in green, bottom left.

      If I had thrown the I Ching about my trip to Aix-en-Provence with Mike that would precede our hike on Corsica last month, I would surely have gotten "Difficulty at the Beginning." We had planned to meet at the Marseille airport, he flying in from visiting family in Washington, D.C., and I from visiting friends in Sweden. Because my planes were delayed, I was late arriving (after 8:00 p.m.), and because I had forgotten that WhatsApp was our planned communication device and had been trying to send Mike texts, which he wasn't able to receive, I was relieved to see him waiting for me when I deplaned. Manipulating our luggage – Mike with his roller suitcase and backpack and I with my roller suitcase and a very heavy duffel bag containing my backpack and some extra clothes I had acquired in Sweden, we struggled outside and hailed a taxi. I was pleased that my French was adequate for a pleasant chat with the nice driver as we drove into Aix.

      We were supposed to meet Thierry, host of our Airb&b, at the Hotel de Ville, hours earlier, so I thought we should go directly to the apartment at 5 Rue de la Louviere. But for some reason I didn't understand, the taxi driver couldn't get there. He dumped us in the middle of Aix with all our luggage, telling us to go "a gauche, a droite, a gauche, a droite," and drove away. 

      In tangle-street Aix it's hard to tell which tiny passage is the left turn referred to. In no time at all Mike and I were lost, struggling along with one backpack, two rolling suitcases, and a very heavy duffel bag, trying to find Rue de la Louviere.

      I stopped two young girls and asked them if they knew where Rue de la Louviere was. They didn't, but they consulted a map with me and then their phone. Meanwhile, Mike was asking the drivers of a city cleaning truck. Finally, the girls showed me the way on their phone map, and Mike, with the same instructions from the maintenance men, shouldered his pack and picked up the heavy duffel bag as I pulled our suitcases behind us to walk the few blocks to Rue de la Louviere.

      Relief was short-lived: the building was locked, and there was no box to hold the keys we had been promised. So we shouldered the pack, picked up the very heavy duffel bag, and, pulling the two suitcases behind us, walked around the corner to an open-air bistro, Aix-Press, where a waiter pointed out to us the Hotel de Ville, the large, stately building with a clock tower on the square, where we were to have met Theirry. 

It, too, was locked, and its two massive and beautifully carved doors contained no box that might hold a key.

      The phone was running out of battery power, but I sent Thierry an email through Airb&b. He responded with directions to the box down the street where he had left the key. With that assurance, we took off the pack and set down the suitcases and duffel bag and had a beer at Aix-Press. We plugged in the phone to recharge it. Then I stayed there with our luggage and the phone while Mike took Thierry's directions – street number, box number, and code for the lock – to retrieve the key. The place with security boxes closed at 10:00. Mike was there at 9:55, trying to figure out how it all worked. The timing was fortuitous, as the woman in charge of the security boxes was just coming to close it all up. She helped Mike, and he returned with the keys to the apartment.

      Now we ordered food from the bistro: a delicious bowl of ice cream with syrup and whipped cream for me, and, for Mike, the house salad, with ham and cheese.

      Fortified and encouraged, we shouldered the pack, picked up the very heavy duffel bag, and pulled the two suitcases behind us back around the corner to 5 Rue de la Louviere. The red key opened the door to the building. Thierry had said for me to call him and he would explain the three other keys, but when I tried to call, I only got an incomprehensible message. Mike tried the keys in the first apartment. None fit. We hit the light button and started up a very narrow spiral staircase, carrying the pack, two suitcases, and the very heavy duffel bag, trying not to make noise as we bumped our burdens up the stairs behind us. The light automatically switched off before we got to the top apartment. Mike turned on his phone flashlight. Thump, thunk, thump with the bags up to the fourth floor, where Mike tried one key after another in the three locks until the door opened, and we were in.

      I sent Thierry a message that we had arrived, and we gratefully settled into the apartment and fell into bed exhausted.

      The next morning I got an irritated message from Thierry that we hadn't called. "Not very cool, huh?" he said, very angry. Mike was outraged at his tone, but I wrote back a courteous note explaining the delays and that I had tried, unsuccessfully, to call. Further communication was without rancor, so I must have smoothed things adequately.

      It was difficulty at the beginning, but, on the other hand, there we were in the center of beautiful, ancient Aix-en-Provence. For the next three days we walked around town, ate delicious food, heard good music, saw exhibitions of Cézanne and Picasso, enjoyed the market on the famous Cours Mirabeau, immersed ourselves in the beautiful architecture, cooled ourselves at the famous fountains, and had our fill of delicious croissants and café au lait. And every time we returned to 5 Rue de la Louviere, we found it without difficulty.