To St. Tropez And Back Again

We'd not been to St. Tropez before, and, of course, it is famous, so we thought we'd give it a try.

We spent the night at an aire in Brignobles, and across the street
in a park was this variation on the food truck theme

In the seaside community of Rayol-Canadel, they adorn their
dumpsters in wrap/pix of local scenes; best rubbish bins ever,
so far

On the peninsula leading to St. Tropez

The aire was a few kilometers from the town, but on the coast,
and we elected to walk the Sentier Littoral into St. Tropez

Thus; sometimes on a path, sometimes on rocks, sometimes on
the sand beach

Ye olde fortress

Building a new boat bar for next season

The sentier took us by the cimetiere, where they do a lot of
ceramique fleurs; "Your French is excellent" a waiter recently
said to me, stifling hails of derisive laughter

Apparently some sort of thing in St. Tropez; we saw a similar
one at Nordkapp

Entering St. Tropez

The cross-bay ferry; very rough out; glad we walked

At a shirt shoppe in St. Tropez; if only I had a reason to wear a tie

Very clever calendar idea

Street scene

Um, maybe stay off the balcony for now

Street scene; most cemeteries have more traffic than this

At a fashionable shoppe: paisley is coming back, BIG-time

At the harbor, the elegant fish-cleaning station

Also at the harbor, the fashionable place

This berth available...your yacht here...

Like a used yacht lot; "we tote the note" (as they say in Foat Wuth)

So we tired of Le Big Nothingness that is St. Tropez and headed
back to the aire and tomorrow's itinerary

Aix-En-Provence Cathedral of Saint-Sauveur

Generally speaking, the older and more seemingly disorganized a cathedral, the more interesting we find it. Saint-Sauveur in Aix is hard to beat in that regard. We have seen older cathedral renovations: e.g.,  a baroque church built on top of a Greek Doric temple in Sicily. But Saint-Sauveur was built on top of the Roman forum, incorporating bits of it, first as a parish church, then revised as the church of one of the orders, then finally revised as a cathedral when Aix became the capital. It's always fascinating to see the layers of Romanesque, Gothic, then Baroque, side by side or one on top of the other. Add a conspicuous layer of Roman, or Greek, and you really have something.

Facade of the cathedral complex

Guess who attended the university across the street

Gothic facade

Helpful floor-plan; looks like a conventional nave with two side aisles; but it's
more complicated than that, with the aisles (and chapels) having come in in
different ages and for different purposes...

It's all fascinating, but the Baptistry is the most fascinating: eight Roman columns
with Corinthian capitals, recycled from the Forum; we'll see this octagonal baptistry
design again in Frejus, a few miles down the road

Gothic nave/aisle

Interesting non-Christian-looking pediment up high in the
Romanesque nave

Few windows

So visits to the cloisters are by guided tour only, so we interrupt this visit to the
cathedral to have a look into the Romanesque cloisters

Thus nicely landscaped

The carving quite good, old, generally well-preserved

"Please proceed to the left"

The capitals in the four corners are the attributes of the four gospel writers;
here, my personal favorite, the lion, Mark 

Highly regarded statue of St. Peter

Now in the Baptistry, looking up at the dome and oculus, much later additions

Original baptistry pool, the oldest bit, going back to early Christian times

Remnant of painting in Baptistry

Remnant of mosaic, on the wall, thus probably very late Roman, Roman/Christian

Ample info on evolution of the Baptistry

The pediment again

Vaulting in Gothic aisle

Barrel vaulting in Romanesque nave

Note the non-Christian-looking little columns up high

Exposed bit of the Roman Forum under the church

Crossing...fascinating church!