If you try to understand the “bourgeois” way of life in Provence, you should visit the surroundings of Aix-en-Provence, where huge bastides can be found. The bigger ones would be called castles anywhere else : they were both holiday and agricultural domains, and where occuped in the summer time by wealthy families from Aix and Marseille, when the heat became oppressive…
[picture: château de la Pioline, hotel]
bastide 