Real estate Sanremo

ours Mirabeau
Canopied by its soaring piane trees, decked with fountains and flanked by cafes, banks,pdt/sseries and hotels particuliers from the I7th and i8th centuries, Cours Mirabeau is the centre stage for Aixois society. Dubbed 'the most satisfying Street in France'and laid out in 1649 to replace the south walls, it begins in Place du General de Gaulle, which takes the old roads from Marseille and Avignon and spins them around the pompous Second Empire fountain, La Rotonde. Other fountains punctuate the cours itself: the lumpy, mossy Fontaine d'Eau Chaude, oozing up its much-esteemed 34 C water and, at the far end, the Fontaine du Roi Rene, with a fairytale statue of the good monarch holding up a bunch of the muscat grapes he introduced to Provence (along with the turkey and silkworm,discreetly omitted bythe sculptor).<br />
Of the fine hotels particuliers on the cours, is where Count Mirabeau wed the aristocratic Emilie de Covet-Marignane in 1772, after playing a dastardly trick on her.When theyoung lady refused his marriage proposai, he sneaked into her house and appeared in the morning on her balcony, clad only in his nightshirt and socks, publicly compromising her virtue. In revenge, his new father-in-law refused thecouple any money,and, when Mirabeau ran up huge debts, signed the orderto have him locked up in theChateau d'If. Mirabeau returned to Aixto plead in thesubsequent divorcecase, butdespite his unparalleled eloquence he lost the appeal.Thus rebuked by his noble peers, he returned to Aix in 1789 as a member of the Third Estate and proceeded to attack their privileges - a trial run for his role in igniting the Revolution in Paris.<br />
Artist Paul Cezannegrew upat 55 Cours Mira beau,the son of a hatter who laterturned banker (on thefacadeyou can stili make out the sign of the chapelier). Nearby the elegant cafe Les Deux Garcons ('Les Deux G') has been Aix's smartest place to see and be seen since the Second World War, with a reputation and pricessimilartothoseof Paris' cafe-citadelsof artsyexistentialist mumbo-jumbo; until recently, North Africans were not admitted. It looks across towards the weighty facade of the 1647 Hotel Maurel de Ponteves the building that inspired Aix's secular Baroque, stili supported after ali theseyears by two muscle-bound stone giants,'the only ones who do any workat ali on the cours', as the saying went in the days of Aix's parliament.<br />
South of Cours Mirabeau, the straight lanes of the Ouartier Mazarin, lined with hotels particuliers and antiques shops, were laid outaccordingtothe rulesof Renaissance urban design bythe archbishop brotherof thefamous cardinal.