For me, the embankment on the Rhone River in Arles will be mostly connected with my abduction by cab. But for the rest of the world, the most important thing is that Vincent Van Gogh painted his famous Starry Night right here where our boat is docked.
Maybe it is just a nineteenth century night, or maybe it is being a schizophrenic artistic genius, but it looks better in his picture than it does in real life.
Today we are going with the group because we have a tour of Arles and then we will be riding only part of the way to our final destination. We will conclude our trip today by cruising down the river into the city of Aigues Mortes, our final destination. Zöe and Sandra are going to skip the tour and bike the whole distance, but they are made of stronger stuff than the rest of us.
Tom Giles and I were definitely ready to go!
Our first stop was the a small square by the tourist office. We parked our bike here, and met our guide. She was a very pleasant woman who spoke excellent English. She gave us a brief overview there of the early history of the city. Arles had been settled by various people — Ligurians, Celts, and even Phoenicians — but it was the Romans who really made it important. The Romans took the area from the Phoenicians in 123 BCE, and named the settlement Arelate. During one of those many Roman Civil Wars of the first century BCE, the people here made a smart bet and sided with Caesar instead of Pompey. For their loyalty, this became the capital of the Gallia Narbonensis, the Roman name for Provence and Languedoc.
Our first stop with our guide was the Place de la Republique. It seems like every town in France has to have a square with this name.
And, like all Republic Squares, it has to be the home to the Mairie, the city hall.
But that little bit of Beaux Arts municipal swagger is not historically or artistically important. The Church of Saint Trophime, a few yards away, is much more significant.
There has been a church on this site ever since late Roman times, and we know that in the fifth century a basilica dedicated to Saint Stephen was erected on this site. T A new cathedral for this city was constructed in the twelfth century on the site of the old basilica. This church was dedicated to Trophimus, the first bishop of Arles. Or maybe it was the Trophimus who accompanied Paul on his third journey according to the Acts of the Apostles. Local people apparently tended to confuse these two. The church was build in the Romanesque style. The choir and nave of the church were rebuilt in the fifteenth century in the Gothic style, but the west portal, seen in the picture above, was not changed. This was quite fortunate for later generations, as the tympanum above the doors is considered one of the masterpieces of Romanesque art.
Our next stop was at the Espace Van Gogh, the Van Gogh center. Some background, as usual: Vincent Van Gogh moved to Arles in early 1888. Though he had been in contact with Paul Gaugin and some of the avant-garde painters in Paris, his work up to this point had few of the distinctive elements of his later style. Southern France with its bright light and vivid colors seemed to inspire the Dutch artist, and his works from his time in Arles are among his most beloved compositions. Unfortunately, his mental health, always somewhat fragile, began to break down a few months after his arrival in this city. In December of 1888, he had a fight with Gaugin and cut off part of his left ear. He was taken to the hospital in Arles for observation and treatment. He painted the courtyard of the hospital.
And it still looks much the same today.
We continued on from here to another famous spot, the Café Terrace. This is one of Van Gogh’s most beloved paintings. As he himself pointed out,
“In the past they used to draw, and paint the picture from the drawing in the daytime. But I find that it suits me to paint the thing straightaway. It’s quite true that I may take a blue for a green in the dark, a blue lilac for a pink lilac, since you can’t make out the nature of the tone clearly. But it’s the only way of getting away from the conventional black night with a poor, pallid and whitish light, while in fact a mere candle by itself gives us the richest yellows and oranges.”
Today, by day or night, the place is crowded with tourists who want to take a picture from the same spot where he artist made his painting.
I found all this interesting, but I was just as taken by the other buildings on the Place du Forum.
From here, we went on to explore the various Roman ruins, the other great attraction of Arles. We went first to the Roman theater. John and Jill were really excited to see this. Unfortunately, they were readying it to use it for a performance, so we had to sit outside the fence and really could not get a good look at it. I had to go online to really get a sense of why it is such an important remnant of this era.
This city still has an amphitheater and it is used for the Course Camargue, the bloodless bullfighting typical of this area. John had me pose here.
And he had Antonella and Sylvia do the same.
Our tour ended here, and we were given a couple of hours to have lunch and wander about. John and I found a pleasant shady park with a bust of Van Gogh.
It was already too hot for John, so he wanted a place where we could have a big bottle of water. Close by the tourist office, we found the Julius Caesar hotel. There was a pretty garden in the back and we had a couple bottles of overpriced Perrier.
We met up with Sherry and Giles and had lunch at a small cafe. Sherry changed tables at least three times before it was time to order. John lost his phone at least once. It was a completely ordinary day at a restaurant! The food was pretty good, though, and not particularly expensive.
By early afternoon, it was time to ride on to meet the boat. John snapped this picture and it is one of my favorites of this trip. He has such a good eye for framing things.
It did not take us long to make it to the spot where the boat was waiting for us. As usual, they had drinks and some snacks waiting for us. But I went straight for my room where I cranked the air conditioner up and took a brief nap.
We spent the afternoon cruising towards Aigues Mortes and the Mediterranean. Somewhat to my disappointment, we were not going down the main route of the Rhone but down a canal. Looking at a map, I figured out that the River emptied out in the middle of the national park, about halfway between Montpellier and Marseilles. I wish could have sailed through this area, but I realize that this is not a good spot to begin or end a tour. It was pleasant enough spending the late afternoon on the boat, but the scenery was not particularly interesting and other than the occasional egret we did not see any wildlife.
About dinner time we arrived at our final destination.
Stefania is our steward. But on this trip, with our all-female crew, she has been learning some of the skills of sailing and docking the boat. I think she may want to be a captain some day.
In the evening we just enjoyed the sight of Aigues Mortes from a distance. We will explore it some more tomorrow.
