In Arles: the monuments (a photo gallery)

November 9, 2022

The thunderstorms never came, and had we known we could have stayed a second night in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and biked up here to Arles after all. The Grampies stayed here in Arles for two nights, so we could have had our meetup with them a day later; so that would have worked out too.

If we had though, it’s unlikely we’d have spent any real time exploring Arles, which for some reason surprises me by what an appealing place it is. My mental image of it has been stuck on the fairly poor impression it made on us when we stayed here for just one night on our rushed tour from Nice to Lisbon over 25 years ago.

With two nights here, there was time to wander it’s streets as we did after breakfast this morning, and to wander through and around its impressive monuments and rich Roman heritage in the afternoon while Rachael finished off her Brunetti mystery and indulged herself in a rare day of rest.

It was my intention to spend some time saying something about what I saw on this second walk through our neighborhood, but I’ve let myself get caught up in obsessing over election returns. Not the smartest use of time, as I tell myself while scrolling through one news site after another; but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to distinguish between the amphitheater, the arena, the town hall, and the cathedral when I look back at these photos later. I’m pretty sure you can too.

We’ll, this probably merits a few words. It’s an illustration of medieval Arles, when the amphitheater more or less became a fortified town as people moved inside for the safety it afforded. The gladiators and lions were long gone, the dangers lay outside the walls now.

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