Arles - Romans in Provence

We arrived in Arles, France on October 31, Halloween.  The sun was shining on the Rhone as we walked from the train station to our AirBnb apartment.  

Here is what awaited us.  If you look closely, you'll see my boots in the lower left hand corner of this photo.  These are the cut-stone stairs to our second floor apartment (there's ground floor, 1st floor, 2nd floor, in France).  We carried our luggage up these steps and back down when we left 2 days later. (Fortunately, the first story had a handrail.  But, I felt a little awkward with no handrail.)

This was our neighbourhood. Arles is not a very large city.  After dark, we noticed that there were lots of Halloween decorations and even a few kids in costume trick-or-treating in the streets, going from shop to shop.  Most people live in apartments, so I imagine that shop-to-shop is the traditional thing here.  It turns out that what they celebrate here is Tousaint (which I think started as Toute Saints), All Saints Day on November 1.

I only photograph the backs of children.  It just seems rude and creepy to show their faces, but some of those costumes were really cute.  One older girl even tried to scare us (with a smile on her face).  It was fun.

Although that first apartment was very nice and modern, we moved to another apartment (on the ground floor, thank you very much) after a couple days.  That is the way we planned it from the beginning because the second one wasn't available until then and, now, we have been here for 4 days.

What we discovered over these 6 days is that Arles is an extremely old site.  There are buildings and ruins that date back to the Roman Empire, over 2000 years old.  (Note: We went to the local tourist information office and bought a pass that gets us into all the ancient sites to walk around and into 3 of the 4 available museums.  It is common, I think for these passes to be available; we had a similar pass in Madrid for their 3 big art museums.  This time, we got a discount on the pass by showing our local housing reservation and a discount at the museum that was not included, the Van Gogh Foundation, because we had the pass. Win-win!)

The Roman Arena in Arles seated about 20,000 people.  It is estimated that the arena was as tall at that tower.  Roman society was separated from each other in the seating; you were seated by status.  The usual entertainments were races, hunts for wild animals, gladiator competitions, etc.  

Now, we have to see the Roman arena in Orange, France.  It is considered the best example in the world of a Roman coliseum.

One of the views from the top of the Arena tower. (Yes, I climbed it and I'm proud.)

I prefer the Roman theatre in Arles.  I think it would have been more interesting entertainment.  This one only seated about 15,000 people, though.  I wonder where all those people came from?  I thought it was a fairly small town.

Saint Trophime's Church

Entrance to St. Trophime's Church

Saint Trophime's cloisters

The Place de la République - St. Trophime's cloister and church on the right, Hotel de Ville (City Hall) in the centre behind the obelisk fountain, and Chapelle Saint Anne on the left.  

Obelisque fountain in Place de la République

I don't know what this place is, but it has a great, very old door.

The Baths of Constantine - we had a pass for this but could never find the entrance.  In fact, it took us two days, off and on, to actually find it.  There is no signage.

We were unable (or unwilling) to see the Alscamps (Roman and medieval graveyard) and the Cryptoportico (the underground corridors that formed the foundation for the 1st century BC Roman forum complex that is now gone).  All that remains of the Forum is one column and a section of wall that was incorporated into a building in the Place du Forum.

And then, there are the Mediatheque (Library) and the Libraries (bookstores), which as my friend Mary pointed out, I can not ignore.

Note the very old wall incorporated into a very modern library.

This, on the other hand, is a librarie (a bookstore).

And, this librarie.

Last, there are the museums: Musee Reattu, Musee de la Camargue, Museun (sic) Arlaten, Musee departmental Arles Antique, and the Foundation Van Gogh.  We were not able to go to the Carmargue because it was way outside of town in a nature reserve or the Arlaten because it is under construction until 2019 (convenient excuse :).

The Musee Reattu primarily houses the work of Jacques Reattu, a neo-classical painter.  The Picasso drawings that we were looking forward to apparently are no longer there.  However, the thing that most interested me was that this building was the site of the Grand Priory of the Knights of Malta.  (Yes, I still have my romantic images of the Templars and the Knights of Malta, Ivanhoe and the romantic crusades; tempered with the reality of what a savage, corrupt and elitist era that was.)

This was a rather Picasso-esque sculpture.  The photo doesn't do it justice.

Fireplace in the Grand Priory, heck with the art

View of the Rhone from the building. (Can you tell I'm a little burned out on art?"

The security guard pointed out that ladies of this period were sewn into their dresses.  There are no closures.

The Foundation Van Gogh museum was not as impressive to me.  It had a lot of contemporary art mixed with old black and white prints of peasants in the fields and a huge collection of photographs.

This is the one Van Gogh in the museum.  The rest apparently are in Amsterdam.  It's photographed at an angle because of the glare off the piece.

I liked this Japanese print, but know nothing about it. :(

Beautiful old room with a fully erected double tent inside.  There is no entrance to the tent and it is patched together with black duct tape.  Curious, and reminds me of my daughter's tent installation at one of her art exhibitions.  However, hers was much more beautiful and you could crawl inside and play SuperMario sitting on pillows.

Such a beautiful photograph of a bouquet of irises

This was painted directly on the wall, as were at least 6 others.  This was my favourite. (Yes, my autocorrect is British.  What can I do?"

Here I am on the very interesting roof of the Van Gogh.

The rooftops of Arles from the Van Gogh

Finally, my favourite museum, Musee departmental Arles Antique.  I cannot pass up a museum of antiquities or archaeology and this is a really good one, if rather small.  The building is new and there is a lot of room for more exhibits.  Currently, the museum is literally centered around a Roman barge that was discovered in 2013 in the Rhone River.

The head of Mithra

From Constantine's Baths

This was probably a funerary piece.  There are many coffins, sarcophagi, and headstones here.

The Romans had some rather beautiful jewellery.  In Cadiz, there were even more beautiful pieces excavated from the much older sites - Roman and Phoenician jewellery.

Okay, now I know where I got these feet - wherever this guy got his.

This is what the Roman plumbing looked like - rather ingenious.

Gaius Cesar, may I say, was a bit of a hottie, as opposed to these guys. (Pardon my superficiality.)

Hadrian

Tiberius

Lucius Cesar

The huge barge that was excavated from the bottom of the Rhone 4 years ago.  It was apparently carrying rocks .

These are amphori that were used as shipping containers.  The shape of each amphora told you what was inside - fish, wine, etc. - no label needed.

There were many of these mosaic jigsaw puzzles.

So, tomorrow, we hop on the train to Barcelona.  Things seem to have settle down there, so we pored over the AirBnb listings and chose an apartment to stay in for 5 nights.  I'm SO excited.  We thought we might not be able to go there at all and it is one of our dream destinations.  Besides, it's getting pretty darn cold here in France and Steve and I are both sensitive to cold now.  Heading South!

Avignon, France - site of the Palais des Papes

Avignon was a very pleasant surprise.  The cathedral and Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes) was amazing and the medieval village, Villenueve, was really something.

Plaza near our AirBnb room

Another eco planted wall like the one in Madrid and the one in Tacoma.  Of course, it is waning because it is Fall.

The municipal building (Hotel de Ville) flying the French and Catalan flags

The plaza in from of the Hotel de Ville - a carousel and lots of outdoor cafes.  They don't seem to open for dinner until 6 or 7pm in France, much earlier than Spain but we ate tapas in bars and waiting until 7pm is a bit of a jolt.

The Palais de Papes (the seat of the second Pope from the time when there were two).  The cathedral, another residence, and the palace gardens are to the left of this photo.

Building across from the Palais.  My quarter of Latin is not enough to know what it is, but I like it.

Entrance to the Palais, where an exhibition of African art is showing

The attached cathedral with a huge crucifix in front and golden  statue of Mary on top

Steve demonstrating the extremely old stone 

The Palais plaza as the sun goes down

Even the French garbage cans are fashionable

One of the views of Avignon from the cathedral grounds

A very beautiful statue of a woman frolicking in the water.  This is in the Palais gardens next to the cathedral

Barge on the Rhone outside the old gate to Avignon.  I swear we saw this very barge in Perpignan.  We noticed the name and commented that it looked like a floating hotel.

The Pont d'Avignon that was destroyed by the French in a dispute with Provence.  Reminds me of the song I learned in French class - Sur le Post d'Avignon; the very bridge.

We took a bus across the Rhone to visit Villeneuve, as recommended by our host.  It is a wonderful medieval village, overshadowed by Fort Saint-Andre.  People actually live in the village.  I'm sure it and the Fort are used for demonstration and re-enactments, but people park their cars, eat dinner, shop, and live there, too.

Fort Saint-Andre could easily be the site of some of the filming of  Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I can see in my mind's eye the Frenchman leaning over and shouting "your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries".

Statue of Mary, I assume, in a small park in the village

Steve waiting for me just outside the village near the bus stop where we caught the bus back to Avignon

We took the train to Arles at the end of our stay in Avignon.  Coming up next...  We have 6 days in Arles; two days in one AirBnb apartment and 4 days in another.  We are pretty excited.  Arles has several buildings that were built by the Romans and are still in rather good condition.

Perpignan, France just across the border from Figueres

It was a rather short ride to Perpignan and our accommodation was more on the rustic side, but very clean and well cared for.  The city was delightful for walking, once we found our way around.  My favorites were the canal and the Castillet.

The Castillet - the entrance to the city through the old wall.  The wall are brick, but  there seems to be a pink light on them at night, gives it a sort of Disney look.

Through the gate into the city

View from the top (yes, I made it!) of the Castillet.  Notice the Catalan flag proudly waving. A large segment of the Perpignan population is ethnic Catalan.  They are only a few miles from Catalonia.

 The railing is very old and the walkway on the Castillet is only a couple feet wide.  Yes, I held on to the stone wall for dear life.  Did I mention that I'm afraid of heights?

At first, I thought this said "Viva la republica, Catalan".  But, now I see that first word is Tisca, which according to my translator makes the phrase, "The Republic is in charge, Catalan".  Not sure who's side they are on.

This is a public building used for weddings and museum exhibits.  But, boy, is it gorgeous at night!

The foundation inside the above public building

Announcement on the window.  Unfortunately, we arrived too late to see this exhibition.  Steve was bummed.

View from our back window

View from our front window.  Yes, many homes look very plain on the outside.  But, the inside can be a whole other story.

We left Perpignan and traveled to Avignon after a few days.