Arles (or, the loveliest Saturday ever)

Hello all!

For a while now, we've been contemplating taking a day trip (or two, or even more!) Today at last we took the plunge, getting up fairly early and heading to the train station where we bought tickets for a train leaving immediately for Nîmes, a city of about 150,000 about 30 minutes away by regional train. A (suspected) early departure of the train in question coupled with some confusion about which platform it was leaving from, and where, exactly, said platform was, resulted in our missing the train. Next train to Nîmes: 2 1/2 hours later.

Not to be deterred, we promptly got tickets for a train to Arles, a city just over half of Avignon's size, and about 20 minutes away by regional train, the same train that we took to get from Marseille to Avignon, just going the other way. Our earlier mistake turned into a boon, and we ended up having a fantastic day in Arles. 

Arles is an extremely old city. According to everyone's dear friend Wikipedia, the area was first settled in 800 BC by an ancient group called the Ligures, before being taken by the Romans in 123 BC and turned into a prosperous Roman city. There's a ton of history behind the city, and it showed. We spent the day mostly wandering and looking at the remnants of the city's Roman era, as well as a number of other intriguing sites, as I'll detail with pictures below.

The first place we stumbled upon was by all appearances a bomb-scarred old church. We saw some other tourists stepping inside and followed them, and uncovered a cavernous sanctuary filled with gorgeous artworks and altarpieces. It's called the Eglise Notre-Dame de la Major, and was originally built in 1152 on the site of an ancient Roman temple, having been through numerous alterations and revisions throughout the centuries.

We saw a lot of small, cobblestone streets in Arles, most of them pedestrian-only, winding up picturesque, flower-covered paths, surrounded by houses. Needless to say, we followed more than a few. The weather was on our side, as it was a gorgeous sunny day.

Entirely by accident we left the old city of Arles and emerged onto Blvd des Lices. It was covered - absolutely covered - with a large, obviously itinerant market. The picture doesn't do it justice; the market stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions, and occupied both sides of the street, leaving a narrow path for residential cars to struggle through. There was an eclectic mix of stalls; we definitely saw some artisans, painters, potters, woodworkers, etc, including one lady who seemed to work exclusively in sparkling paint on black velvet. On the other hand, the majority of the stalls dealt in everyday items like clothes, shoes, cookware, watches (including some "rolexes"), and other things that  seemed potentially dubious in terms of their procurement. There was also fresh food and animals, living and not. At the far end of the market it suddenly took on a distinctively Middle-Eastern feel, with incense vendors and men peddling CDs and books in Arabic. Apparently the market is weekly, and is the largest one in Arles. At one point we came across a woman toting a large pot-bellied pig that had been covered in green sparkles. I wasn't quick enough to snap a picture.

After spending some time at the market we stopped in at a restaurant called La Charcuterie, more or less at random, and ended up having the most lovely meal of our trip so far. We both ordered the "plat du jour," generally a mixed plate that's quite a bit cheaper than the normal dishes. After a bowl of olives and bread to appetize, the main dish consisted of a simple salad, delicious seasoned broccoli, pommes dauphine (deep-fried round potato puffs), and two cuts of fantastic lamb. I meant to take a picture of the place when we left, but I forgot!

Then we headed down to the river Rhone, the same river that runs through Avignon, and wandered along the riverbank for a while.

We also checked out the "summer gardens," complete with flowers in full bloom, trees, and even bamboo...

There were also several impressive Roman ruins throughout the old portion of the city. This is the amphitheater:

After our wandering we settled in at a cafe situated at the base of the massive coliseum, which is still used for bullfights (of the fatal and non-fatal kind both, unfortunately). Of course I meant to take pictures of both and managed to forget. So instead, enjoy this picture of the Van Gogh cafe, where we did not have coffee. Incidentally, it was in Arles that Van Gogh painted something in the neighbourhood of 300 paintings, and went nuts and sliced part of his ear off.

Finally, instead of an impressive photograph of the coliseum, here is an artist's rendition, executed using only the finest digital imaging software.

See y'all!

-Brock