In Arles

October 10, 2022

Goddesses, Romans and Vincent

We have a big agenda in Arles today. The city was a valuable port for the Romans 2,000 years ago owing to its location on the Rhone roughly halfway between Italy and Spain, and they left their mark here. There's an impressive collection of Roman ruins dating back to the first century BC, plus Romanesque treasures from the Middle Ages. All these monuments have earned recognition for Arles as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Add to that all the places around the city where prints of Vincent Van Gogh's works are displayed by the scenes he painted in the last two years of his life and it makes for an ambitious day. We've mapped out two circuits, on foot and by bike, to try and take it all in.

It's a short walk from our lodging to the Cryptoporticus, an underground passageway built in the first century BC. The U-shaped structure was built as the foundation for the Forum. From the Hotel de Ville we descend to the first gallery. It's fascinating to walk through these ancient passages past centuries-old artifacts.

Arles' Hotel de Ville. A Roman obelisk from the fourth century stands in front.

Walking through the south passageway of the Cryptoporticus

Cellar windows provide light and ventilation for the underground galleries.

Next to the Hotel de Ville stands the Church of St. Trophime, built in the Romanesque style starting in the 12th century. Arles was the second largest city in Provence at the time and the church was designated as a Cathedral. The Cloister adjacent to the church was built to be a residence for canons - priests who served the bishop. Both the church and the Cloister are adorned with an amazing collection of intricate Romanesque sculpture. Some of the works date back further to the Roman Empire.

Over the church door, a Romanesque sculpture of Christ with the evangelists and apostles

Ancient Roman sarcophagus in the church, believed to hold the remains of St. Honoratus, archbishop of Arles in the 5th century

Elaborate carvings of the saints on the Cloister galleries

Everything is so compact here. We walk just a bit further to find the Roman Theater and beyond it, the Amphitheater. I'm amazed that we can just wander around all these crumbling ruins.

At the entrance to the Theater I circle around a compelling statue of Niobe. The anguish in her face as she leans over her dead child spurs me to find out what the story is. According to Homer in the Iliad, Niobe bragged about her six sons and six daughters to the goddess Leto who had only two, Apollo and Artemis. Enraged, Leto had her two children kill all of Niobe's. When Niobe begged the gods to end her pain, Zeus transformed her into a rock to make her feelings stony, but her endless tears continued to pour out in a stream from the rock. It's satisfying to fill another hole in my gaping education on Greek mythology.

Niobe's tragic story of the peril of pride and arrogance brought me back to study this beautiful sculpture later in the day.

From the first century AD, the Roman Amphitheater - Arenes d'Arles - hosted crowds of 20,000 of more for chariot races and gladiator battles. Now people come for bull races and games from April to October and summer concerts and plays.

Good views of the city from the towers in the Amphitheater

We missed the last bull games of the season in the Amphitheater by a couple of days, will have to come back.

The arcades at the Amphitheater serve the same purpose as the walkways in Busch Stadium at home - access to the show, but what a different experience it is to walk through these arches on a sunny day.

Looking out to the Rhone through an arch in one of the towers

We have one more Roman engineering marvel to see this morning, the Baths of Constantine. Built in the 4th century during the reign of the Emperor Constantine, the baths served as a health club for the public. A system of ovens, braziers and channels under the floor and in the walls heated the baths to different temperatures. Citizens came to socialize, read, relax, and exercise as well as bathe.

You could sweat it out in a heated bath under the apse on the left between visits to the cold water pool.

Admiring the brickwork in the thermal baths

Still processing our experience in these ancient treasures, we need sustenance and circle back to the Place du Forum for lunch. The yellow cafe where Vincent Van Gogh painted his Café Terrace at Night is here, but we pick another restaurant a few doors down. I want to try the the Daube de Toro at Le Bistrot Arlésien, a stew of bull meat – Taureau, of the Camargue region.

The distance on our walk through the ancient treasures of Arles was barely 2 kilometers. I need more exercise. After lunch we retrieve our bikes from the shop for a wider circuit.

Around the block we find L'Espace Van Gogh, a pretty courtyard in a former hospital. The artist came to Arles in 1888 to paint in the sunny light of Provence. He created over 300 paintings here, a stunning body of work considering his mental instability. It was later that year that he cut off part of his ear and was committed in the hospital here. As we study his image of the courtyard it seems that painting must have been therapy for him .

Van Gogh's "Le Jardin de l'Hôtel de Dieu," in the courtyard of the former hospital where he was treated.

The fountain bubbles away in this peaceful courtyard. The gardens look very much as they did in Van Gogh's painting.

From there we continue down the bike path to the Jardin d'été, the public garden near the Theater. We spend some time with other visitors who are strolling, reading and relaxing in this lovely space. A picture of Van Gogh's painting of this space stands here. The artist wrote to his brother Theo about the extraordinary beauty of this place:

"Everything and everywhere the dome of the sky is of an admirable blue, the sun has a radiance of pale sulfur and it is soft and charming like the combination of celestial blues and yellows in the Van der Meer of Delft."

At the entrance to the Jardin d'éte, another of Van Gogh's colorful landscapes. Barry's yellow bike fits right in with the vibe.

While walking the upper levels of the Amphitheater this morning we could see an ultra-modern tower in the distance but had no idea what it was. A short pedal down Boulevard Victor Hugo takes us to LUMA Arles, a contemporary arts center. Faced with reflective stainless steel bricks set at different angles, the twisty tower reminds me of the transformers our kids used to play with. I imagine arms and legs hinging out to reveal a robot stepping off the base.

Clouds reflecting off the LUMA Arles tower. I want to come here at sunset sometime to watch the light, or at sunrise, or anytime really.

There's more twisty art inside – a double helix staircase rising up the atrium and a pair of spiraling tubular slides. Friendly greeters invite us to take the elevator to the ninth floor terrace, where we walk out to a stunning view of Arles, its antique Roman monuments and the surrounding Camargue countryside. There are more contemporary art exhibits here than we can do justice to this afternoon. I'd love another shot at it sometime.

From the ninth floor terrace of LUMA, a panorama of the ancient sites of Arles, the Rhone, and from another angle, the Alpilles mountains

Turning south we're soon back in the first century at the Alyscamps, a Roman necropolis outside the old city walls. It was a desirable place to be buried as late as the Middle Ages. Elaborate stone monuments were carved for some of the more well-off citizens of Arles. Van Gogh and his friend Paul Gaugin were inspired to paint in this ethereal atmosphere.

The afternoon is advancing on us as we ride along the canal back towards the Rhone. We're packing it in today because it's really our only day in Arles. I'm itching for a real ride tomorrow, but this afternoon the bikes are taking us everywhere we hoped to go.

We still have time for a visit to the Museum of Ancient Arles. I'm thrilled when we get there and find another Venus. At the Louvre in Paris two weeks ago we were treated to the mesmerizing Venus de Milo. I didn't know at the time about the Venus of Arles. She was discovered in pieces under the Roman Theater and now also stands at the Louvre. I'm happy to spend some time here with a replica of this goddess.

Barry is fascinated by a 2000 year old Roman barge that was discovered under the mud of the Rhone river. Made of oak and spruce with iron framing, the 31-meterlong boat weighs 8 tons and could carry almost three times that much in building stones. A Roman silver coin minted in 123 BC was found wedged in the bow. A video with English subtitles tells the story of how the ship was recovered from the mud and restored. There’s lots more to see in this museum; well worth a visit.

2000 year old barge that carried materials for the Roman's extensive building projects in their quest for world domination

We spy one more Van Gogh painting riding back along the river, the Staircase of the Trinquetaille Bridge. The bridge is different now, not as interesting as the metal structure of Van Gogh's time which seemed to flow down the stairway.

There are at least a dozen of these sites in Arles where you can see prints of Vincent Van Gogh's vibrant landscapes where he created them. We had a wonderful introduction to his art at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, one of our first stops when we started this trip three weeks ago. It's so enjoyable to be outside in the fresh air soaking in the scenes that inspired him. I hope we get to come back someday.

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Today's ride: 6 km (4 miles)
Total: 477 km (296 miles)

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Rich FrasierOhmygosh! I’ve been to Arles 3 or 4 times and I still haven’t done some of the things you did in this one day. Major kudos to you two - amazing research and energy. Makes me want to go back and see some of these things!
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonWhat Rich said. Great post! Thanks for putting so much detail into this. We’ll definitely have to find our way back here again and stay longer next time.
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1 year ago

Janice BranhamThanks Rich and Scott. It was a peak day for sure. I'm a slow writer but when there's so much good stuff to see it takes awhile.
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1 year ago