The oldest part of the "old town" the stones reveal over two thousand years of wear and tear. The Roman forum now lies beneath a part of the Cathedral and the only twentieth century intruder in this part of town is located at the bottom of the rue du Bon Pasteur, the Aqua Bella hotel, rises four square atop the Roman thermal establishment of the "Aquae Sextiae" . The earliest depiction of this part of town, a fifteenth century painting of "scenes from the life of" Saint Mitre is in the saint's chapel directly behind the Cathedral high altar. Though unbelievers will always disbelieve, the saint is here seen at a "crowning moment" of his life, holding his severed head "to the merriment of Roman soldiers and the awe-struck horror of onlookers". It is told that he kissed it. A less challenging truth, Aix in the fifteenth century, with its Cathedral tower, and the magnificent palaces that surrounded it. We are, here, most surely, on the site of Aix's prehistory, the crossroads and thermal springs that quenched the thirst of weary travellers on their way from Italy to Spain and from Marseille to Paris.