Through her eyes

By Susan Gish (Photo by Sam Gish)

Every day I walk the streets of Aix-en-Provence through the eyes of M.F.K. Fisher.

I hear the Sound of the Place.

I see the Sunset with the Golden Light.

I smell the air in Aix, the taste, the touch.

M.F.K. describes the senses so vividly in her book about Aix, ‘Map of another town.’

The sound of ‘the city of fountains and music.'

The light, ‘The color of it in the sunset is deathless…or should I say only that as long as I

myself shall live I shall see it.'

It’s so thrilling to live here in Aix following in M.F.K.’s footsteps daily.

Many of the places she wrote about are still here!

17 rue Cardinale is just up the road from The Four Dolphins fountain. ‘I feel most deeply about the Four Dolphins …it is impossible to say why, except that I have known them, in day and night, for much longer than any one person could ever be in Aix.’

I go to The Glacier (now called La Rotonde) and look for Ange the waiter. The coatroom that Mary slept in when she got lost at Carnaval isn’t there anymore. From my outside table I have a perfect view of La Rotonde fountain.

I can see in my mind’s eye, M.F.K. walking round and round the fountain questioning should I stay or go? ‘Madame, consider what you are doing. Consider…Reflect, reflect.’ 

The Cours Mirabeau, once called the most beautiful Main Street in the world, is no longer, as almost all of the plane trees died and have been replaced with young trees that don’t yet frame or shade the road. But Old Mossback fountain is still there.

Sometimes I ‘dip my aching hands in its warmth’ of Old Mossback’s water to take the cure…perhaps it might heal me.

Deux Garcons, The 2 G’s is still under construction from a fire in 2019. I often sat there before the fire drinking un verre de rosé (instead of M.F.K.’s vermouth-gin!), looking for the house cat.

At the entrance to the Passage Agard, The Gypsy Way, the Gypsies are still there begging for coins. As I walk by they whisper or give me ‘The Sign.'

I stop by the little shuttered window that was Brondino’s bookshop on the way to the Place de l’Archeveche & the Cathedral St. Saveur.

During the pandemic, we only had 1 kilometer and 1 hr. to be outside. I walked in M.F.K.’s footsteps, chapter by chapter. It was amazing to see Aix through the eyes of M.F.K. and her daughters in the 1950’s!

My husband and I had an idea to create an Instagram page with photos of the places M.F.K. talked about in the book! @mfkaixfootsteps

Jacques Pepin, Ruth Reichl, Luke Barr, Jeremiah Tower, Bill Buford, Alexander Lobrano, Sylvie Bigar, Clark Wolf, and more follow us! We’d love for you to as well!

Pictured: The Four Dolphins Fountain or Fontaine des Quatre Dauphins - looking up rue Cardinale to Église Saint Jean de Malte. 17 rue Cardinale is a few houses before the red church doors on the right.