Arles

Children being instructed in the finer arts of gladiatorial combat.

We went to Arles as a day trip from Avignon, since it's only a 15-minute train ride south down the Rhone River. Arles was an extremely important Roman city as it was the first bridge over the Rhone above the mouth of the river, making it a key transportation and trade crossroads. (The bridge itself was pretty ingenious. Rather than build a standard stone-and-brick bridge, the Romans constructed a permanent pontoon bridge of boats linked together that would rise and fall with the river, preventing the possibility of the bridge being washed away in a flood.) Arles thus has one of the largest and best-preserved collections of ancient Roman ruins in France.

Amphitheater

Despite the sun and the intense heat (good thing I had a new hat!), we saw as many of the ancient sites as we could in our afternoon in the city, starting with the amphitheater. It's basically a mini version of the Colosseum in Rome, but much better preserved. In fact, it's still in use today for bull fights (although unlike the Spanish version, in the Provencal version, the bull isn't killed) but this means its hard to tell what is original Roman-era construction and what is restored, modern construction. Still, you get a good feel for what an intact amphitheater would have been like.

Roman theater.

Storming the castle!

Eef you're appee ann yoo know eet...

Next to the amphitheater is the ancient theater, used for dramatic performances and dating from the first century AD. During the Middle Ages, it was used as a quarry for other building projects in the city and so while part of it has been restored, it's only about half the size it would originally have been. This, too, is still in use for summer-time outdoor plays. While we were sitting in the top row admiring the site, a large group of French schoolchildren entered. At a signal from their teacher, they all shouted and started clambering up the seats as quickly as possible. It looked like they were coming right for us! Once at the top, though, they all sat down and started singing "If You're Happy and You Know It" in English. We have no idea what it was all about, but it was entertaining to watch!

Baths of Constantine.

We also visited the Baths of Constantine, dating from the fourth century AD and only about a third of which still survives. The site wasn't well-explained and it was fairly small; it only took about ten minutes to walk through all that remains of the public baths, specifically the hot water room and the warm water room.

Cryptoporticus - but what is it?

The final ancient site we visited was the cryptoporticus, a series of three long tunnels supported by columns now in the basement of the city hall of Arles. It was built in the first century BC as a foundation for the forum of the city and used as storage or as barracks. There were no signs, it was very damp and we were the only people down there (we got in about twenty minutes before closing) and it was kind of eerie. I really have no idea what we were looking at, just that it was Roman!

Funerary statue of Medea about to kill
her children. Why would you put this
on your grave?

The Roman museum in Arles was much more interesting and much better explained. It's about a 25-minute walk from the central city and we got there about 45 minutes before they closed, so we had to kind of race through it. But they've got some fantastic sculptures from various ancient buildings and very cool models of the major Roman remains as they would have looked in ancient times. They also have some very beautiful mosaics found at some of the ritzy ancient villas across the river and there are lots of sarcophagi with amazing sculptural details. It was a great collection of material.

Church of St. Trophime

Pilgrim

Among the non-Roman sites in the city is the church of St. Trophime, built mostly in the 11th and 12th centuries. It has some very well-preserved Romanesque sculptures around the front door which look very different from the Gothic sculptures we saw all over northern France. Inside, there's a chapel chock-full of saints' relics all of them helpfully labeled (although you can't go in, you can just peer through the grate). It's the most I've seen in one place! Also, there are a couple of altars in side chapels that are actually fourth century AD sarcophagi that, at some point in the Middle Ages, were discovered and turned into altars (presumably without the bodies inside!). As we left the church, we saw a guy come in with a walk staff and a huge backpack. He went to the "welcome desk" and it dawned on us that he was making the pilgrimage to the Santiago de Compostella in Spain and was stopping off to get his pass stamped, proving that he had walked most of the way. It was kind of cool to see a modern pilgrim following the same route and seeing the same churches pilgrims did a thousand years ago.

Cloister of St. Trophime.

Attached to the church is a cloister. Half of it was built in the 12th century in Romanesque style and the other half built in the 13th century in Gothic style. The capitals of the columns ringing the cloister are supposed to be quite beautiful and have interesting individually carved figures on them, but because most of the cloister is undergoing renovation, we couldn't see them! We could, however, climb up to the second floor and see the drainage system on the roof that was used to save rain water for use by the canons of the church.

Compare and contrast: Van Gogh....

Reality.

Besides the Roman ruins, Arles is also famous as the town where Vincent van Gogh lived from 1888 to 1889. During that time, he produced many of his most famous paintings. It's also where he famously cut off his ear and was checked into the hospital before leaving town for a mental asylum not far away. Today, Arles has erected little plaques throughout the city marking places van Gogh painted and showing you a copy of the painting (none of his paintings are actually housed in Arles). So we got to see the same view he did when he painted Starry Night Over the Rhone and we walked by the cafe on Place du Forum that he painted as The Night Cafe. We also went to the courtyard of the former hospital where he stayed following the loss of his ear. The courtyard is now painted in bright colors to match a painting van Gogh did of it and the garden is also planted to match the painting.

Van Gogh's hospital.

In all, it was a pretty jam-packed afternoon in the heat of Arles. We headed back to Avignon around eight (after our train was delayed about 20 minutes) for dinner at a tapas restaurant and then bed. The next morning, we set out for the next stop on our circle tour (and another major ancient Roman city): Lyon.

Chapel of relics in Saint-Trophime.

Sarcophagus-altar at Saint-Trophime.