Luxury Villa Bordighera

Aix: his history
The first version of Aix,the oppidum of Entremont.was the capital of the Salyens, a Celto-Ligurian tribe who liked to decapitate their enemies and tie their heads to the tails of their horses. By 123 bc they had pulled this trick once too often on the Greeks of Massalia,whocalled in their Roman alliestoteach them a lesson. Under Sextius Calvinus,the Romans did just that, and founded a camp by a nearby thermal spring that they named Aquae Sextiae Salluviorum.<br />
Just 20 years later, in 102 Bc.these Latin frontiersmen woke up one day tofind 200,000 ferociousTeutones with covered wagons at their door,en routeto Italy looking not fora place to camp but for Lebensraum.Jhe strategies of the great Roman general Marius caught them unawares, and, in the battle that raged around Aix,<br />
so manyTeutones were killed orcommitted suicide thatfor decades Aix enjoyed bumper crops thanks to soil enriched with corpses.The mountain where Marius'final triumph took place was renamed Montagne Ste-Victoire.<br />
Although bythe nextcenturyAquaeSextiaewasa bustlingtown on the Aurelian Way, invaders in the Dark Ages destroyed it thoroughly Only in the iith century did Aix begin to revive: the Bourg St-Sauveur grew up around the cathedral with such vigour that in the early 13th century the counts of Provence chose it as their capital. In 1409, Louis II dAnjou endowed the university, and in the 14th century Aix was the setting for the refined court of the Bon Roi Rene.fondly remembered notforthe way he squeezed every possiblesoufrom hissubjects butfortheartists whom he patronized, such as Francesco Laurana, Nicolas Froment and the Maitre del Annonciation Aix, and the popular festivi-ties he founded, especially the masquerades of the Fete-Dieu.<br />
When Rene died at Aix in i486, France absorbed his realm but maintained Aix's status as the capital of Provence, seat of the provincial Estates, the governor and the king-appointed Parlement -thelatter institution sounpopularthat it wascounted asoneof the three 'plagues'of Provence, along with the mistral and the Durance. In the i/th and i8th centuries, this unloved elite built themselves morethan 160 refined hotels particuliers in golden stone, inspired by northern Italian Baroquearchitecture, bequeathingAixa rich, harmonious urban fabric. Even the real plague of cholera in 1720 contributed to the city's embellishment when it contaminated the water supply; once new sources had been piped in, the city built itsfountainsto receivethem.<br />
In 1789 thetumultuous Count Mirabeau becamea popular hero in Aix when he eloquently championed the people and condemned Provence's Parlement as unrepresentative; the whole regional government was unceremoniously packed off to Marseille. Aix, the Athens of the Midi', has found enough to keep it busy without it.tending its university, making its sweets, hosting music