Ancient Arles

What a sweet, quaint town! We arrived in Arles via train in the late afternoon and quickly acclimated ourselves to this walkable town. Our stay at Mia Casa with Delphine as host was a highlight of our accommodations. You will definitely find my spectacularly positive fantastic review of her B and B on Tripadvisor.com. I have used this site faithfully and have never been steered wrong. Well, ok once, but I chose to ignore the negative comments. (See blog titled – Probably the Worst Hostel Ever).

Arles is the type of place that feels like a comfortable slipper. Walking the tiny streets and enjoying the old buildings put me right back into the time of Van Gogh. I can see why he came here to paint, the light, the ambiance, the gosh darn quaintness of it is truly inspiring.

On Wednesday morning we walked to the market buying, cheese, sausage, soap, herbs and a few other items that I now have to find room to pack in my ever increasing in size bag. Good thing that I packed lighter this time!

We followed a self-guided tour of “Places that Van Gogh painted.” In some of the locations, you could still see the resemblance of how it was in his time. See the plaque on the right side of the photo and the original cafe on the left. I took pictures to show my students next year in art class. I will have to work it into an assignment of Van Gogh inspiration.

We also bought the Passport Liberte for five sites and the museum for one month. We managed to see four sites in an afternoon and did not return in the morning to the museum. But enjoyed enough to get our money’s worth since Violet was free. Gotta love the under 16 policy for “children.”

My favorite place was the underground part of the old Roman city that was in Arles. Called Cryptoporticus du Forum. It sits underneath a building called “Hotel de Ville.” Other monuments we visited were Théâtre Antique. Still in use, a stage was set up for summer music programs. The Arena, similar to the Coliseum in Rome, but smaller, still hosts bull fights, most unfortunate for the bulls.