Provence is a region in southeastern France. “Perdu” is a French word that means “lost.” We’ve just arrived in one of Provence’s major cities, Aix-en-Provence, or just “Aix.” We know we’re in Aix, but other than that, there is no doubt that we are perdu en Provence.
We left Nice this morning, headed up the A57 through Antibes and Cannes – a beautiful drive. We reached Aix-en-Provence without a problem. Signs directed us to the “Centre-Ville” area, which is where our hotel is located. We were without GPS, but we had an excellent map, so we figured that finding the hotel shouldn’t be too tough.
It’s a Complicated Layout
On the other hand, Centre-Ville does have a complicated layout. Centre-Ville streets are crooked little alleyways laid on top of ancient lanes. But the main street, “Cours Mirabeau,” where our hotel is located, is a wide thoroughfare, so it should be easy to find.
We followed the signs and found ourselves on a 3-lane, one-way road encircling Centre-Ville. Traffic was heavy, and moving fast. Apparently, a lot of people here had someplace they had to be right away.
Quite a few cars were small. Extra-small. Maybe it was an optical illusion, but it seemed like the smaller they were, the faster they went.
Narrow streets opened onto the 3-lane road and disappeared into Centre-Ville. It wasn’t obvious which one would lead to our hotel, so we ended up going all the way around the loop, checking out all of them.
Things Were Starting to Look Familiar
We were back where we started on the 3-lane road. We hadn’t made any progress, but at least this time around things looked familiar. We needed to choose one of the side streets going into Centre-Ville and take it.
Those streets were tiny, and traffic being what it was, we didn’t have the luxury of slowing way down to take a look before making a turn. Who knew where the street signs were, anyway? Not us.
Before we knew it, we were half-way around the loop. Now the side streets were one-way, coming out of Centre-Ville, so we had no choice but to go around again.
No problem. It was a nice day. We’d had lunch. There was no place we were in a rush to get to. We were making progress…
Try Again
Next time around we took the first side street we could find. We were off the 3-lane race track. Whew! The street we took turned out to be one-way, and fortunately, it happened to be in the same direction we were pointed in – always a nice surprise at times like these.
It’s a good thing that street was only one-way, too, because it was just barely wide enough for one car. One very small car, actually, and our Peugeot wasn’t particularly small. We had to be careful not to scrape the sides on anything.
The little street meandered crookedly along, so we meandered crookedly along with it. We came to intersections with other tiny streets, but we didn’t see any reason why they’d be any better than the one we were on, so we kept going straight.
Then we came to a busy street. Cours Mirabeau, maybe? Nope. Hmmm… it looked familiar. It was the 3-lane race track we’d been going around in circles on. Apparently we’d cut through the middle of Centre-Ville and had come out on the other side.
No problem. It was a nice day. We’d had lunch. There was no place we were in a rush to get to. We were making progress… But this was getting old fast.
Il n’y a pas de Choix, (There is No Choice)
We had no choice but to get on the race track again, circle around, and take another side street. The next one we took looked just like the last one, except this time, after driving a ways, we came to a fork in the road.
Both directions looked equally mysterious. If they had street signs in Centre-Ville, they were well-hidden. We decided to take the one that went to the left.
It meandered around, crossed some other narrow streets, then dumped us right back out onto the 3-lane race track. Where the heck was Cours Mirabeau — the big street that runs right down the middle of Centre-Ville?
Having no choice, we jumped out into traffic and proceeded to go round again. We tried another side street. This time, instead of going straight, we made every turn we could make, trying to cover every inch of Centre-Ville.
Corner after corner, turn after turn, there was no sign of the big main street and no sign of our hotel. That’s OK. Actually, at this point, it was no longer OK.
Were we in the right town? Does Cours Mirabeau really exist, or is this just some kind of cruel hoax? Will Rod Serling be standing around the next bend, awaiting our arrival with a knowing smile? Is that the Twilight Zone theme I hear, or am I just imagining it???
To be continued…
We had a similar experience