Avignon and Arles are intimately associated with the modern exponents of Provençal literature, but Aix will ever stand as the home of Provençal letters of a past time, Aix the nursery of the ancient troubadours. As a touring-ground little exploited as yet, the region for fifty kilometres around Aix-en-Provence offers so much of novelty and charm that it may not be likened to any other region in France. Off to the southwest is Les Pennes, one of those picturesque cliff-towns, scattered here and there about Europe, which makes the artist murmur: “I must have that in my portfolio,”--as if one could really capture its scintillating beauty and grandeur. Les Pennes will be difficult to find unless one makes a halt at Aix, Marseilles, or Martigues, for it appears not to be known, even by name, outside of its own intimate radius. [Illustration: _Les Pennes_] It shall not further be eulogized here, for fear it may become “spoiled,” though there is absolutely no attraction, within or without its walls, for the traveller who wants the capricious delights of Monte Carlo or the amusements of a city like Aix or Marseilles. On the “Route Nationale” between Aix and Marseilles is the little town of Gardanne, only interesting because it is a typical small town of Provence. It has for its chief industries the manufacture of aluminium and nougat, widely dissimilar though they be. Just to the southward rises majestically the mountain chain of the Pilon du Roi, whose peak climbs skyward for 710 metres, overshadowing the towns of Simiane, with its remains of a Romanesque chapel and a thirteenth-century donjon, and Septèmes, with the ruins of its Louis XIV. fortifications, and Notre Dame des Anges, which was erected upon the remains of the ancient chapel of an old-time monastery. From the platform of Notre Dame des Anges is to be had a remarkable view of the foot-hills, of the coast-line, and of the sea beyond, the whole landscape dotted here and there with yellow-gray hamlets and olive-trees, and little trickling streams. It suggests nothing so much as the artificial spectacular compositions which most artists paint when they attempt to depict these wide-open views, and which it is the fashion to condemn as not being true to nature. This may sometimes be the case; but often they are as true a map of the country as the average topographical survey, and far more true than the best “bird’s-eye” photograph that was ever taken. The Pilon du Roi, so named from its resemblance to a great ruined or unfinished tower, rises two hundred or more metres above the platform of the church, and to climb its precipitous sides will prove an adventure as thrilling as the most foolhardy Alpinist could desire.