Zona Rosa in Aix-en-Provence

It’s hard to believe I have been in Aix-en-Provence since Saturday afternoon, and this is the first time I’ve felt free to publish a post on this blog. I am taking this time while most of the other participants are off touring the countryside, something I am fortunate enough to have done before.

First, after I finally got to bed on Saturday night, I slept for 14 hours and almost missed the first session of our workshop.

On Sunday night, I slept for 11 hours. That kind of sleep is not solely the result of jet lag. I was just so tired from life, from all the craziness I was enduring in Macon before I started this journey.

Our sessions have been very productive. Each day, Rosemary highlights the work of one or more writers in our group sessions, and we each have one-on-one time with her to work on our individual manuscripts and/or poems. I brought poems with me, old ones that I have been struggling for years to perfect. I brought them here so that I could get satisfied with them or just let them go.

A couple of them are already published on “My Poems,” but I have never been satisfied with them, so if you follow that blog, you will see some drastic changes in a couple of the pieces.

Today I walked to the Grand Place and sat at a sidewalk cafe and drank a class of white wine while I enjoyed the view and the people watching that is so wonderful here. The famous Fontaine de la Rotonde is mesmerizing, almost hypnotic. Although the site on which Aix was built has been occupied since 121 BC, this fountain was built in 1860 to give the city a focal point.

Aix is a city of fountains. The Romans always built their cities on ground where there is water, and before it was called Aix, this city was known as Aquae Sextiaë (The Waters if Sextius) because of the abundance of spring water and in honor of its founder, Sextius Calvinus. There are 17 fountains within the walls of the city, and they span the gamut from ancient to modern. These bubbling and sparkling gems refresh the city and enchant both tourists and locals alike.

On my way back to our hotel, “Le Mozart,” I stopped and bought half a bottle of red wine, some cheese and and bread, the perfect Provençal lunch, which I ate on the little private balcony off my “chambre.”