Chapter 50: Roamin’ in Roman (ruins)

The Romans conquered Arles in 123 BC, and made it their major river trading port on the Rhone, ignoring Marseille down the coast.  Over time, as the river silted up and the more practical and coastal Marseille grew into prominence as the second largest city in France, little Arles shrank into nothingness for 1500 years until one artist made it famous again.  Arles has two strong selling features for tourists– Roman ruins and Vincent Van Gogh.   There’s not much that happened in between, and sadly, not much left of either.

We last visited Arles in a summer many years distant, so we needed a refresher.  It amazed us we couldn’t remember a single feature about the town, except we knew we’d been there, and it had been very, very hot.  As it’s only 62 kilometres away, we thought we’d revisit this A-List town in Provence.  And now we remember why we forgot it, and plan to forget it again.

What you get in Arles, can be got in other places – only bigger and better.  As it became second-rate to Marseille, so it is still second-rate for its many attractions.  Perhaps I am cruel?  Maybe we are “Provenced-out” having visited so many lovely towns and villages already.  Maybe we need and want to go home as our year in France expires?  Maybe we just prefer the Middle Ages?  Because Arles really is lovely, and if you haven’t seen Roman ruins before, here’s what it has to offer.

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Firstly, it’s on one of the four French Caminos and we always get a buzz from seeing the signs on the streets.  Then, there is the lovely St Trophime Cloister, half Romanesque (that’s 11^th century architecture and nothing to do with Romans), and means it has barrel-vaulted ceilings in half its sides, then half gothic (13^th century) with beautiful soaring arches and lighter structures in the other two corridors.  Many of the statues are still available to gaze at.  Interest-levels?  Hmmm.

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St Trophime Eglise sits on the main plaza in the old town, and it’s – hmmm.  Oh, I am not cynical; it was lovely.  I found Saint Roch again, and am always happy to find him on my treasure-hunts for saints.  He pulls up his skirts to show his plague boil and is always accompanied by a dog who represents loyalty.  The faithful chien brought the saint food while he recovered from the Plague – there’s two miracles right there!  However, Saint Roch is better done in his home town of Montpellier.

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Along to the right a bit, accessible by foot, is the antique Roman theatre, with lots of lovely bits of carved stone to show it was once beautiful, once Roman and once a theatre.  The acoustics are still great so it is occasionally used and has modern seating.  But the stage wall in Orange’s Roman Theatre is far larger, the biggest in Europe in fact.

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Along the Camino is the Roman Amphitheatre.  Now you’re talking!  This one can hold 20,000 people and has lots of Roman arches and tunnels to explore.  Having it to ourselves, it was a bit scary in some of those tunnels when we got separated.  I didn’t like that much and the one in Nimes is larger and better.

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However, this one is still in use today as a bull-fighting ring, because down here in the Camargue, they continue to fight the Camargue bulls, with their elegant, lyre-shaped horns, except not to the death.  They simply tease them and wear them out in order to snatch the white tassels from the horns and the red bauble suspended between them.  It’s more of a dance.  Bulls live a long life and become celebrities in Arles.  Being dead-against bull-fighting after visiting Pamplona, this is more civilised, I suppose.  At least bull-fighting is better in Arles, but who wants that Pyrrhic claim to fame?

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We wandered up to the north of the old town, wondering where all the people were, (while also knowing we would hate the crowds in summer), to find the remaining one quarter of the Roman Thermae (bath house), in ruins.  We could see where the fires were lit under the suspended baths, to allow Romans their frigidarium, tepidarium and caldarium bathing.  We poked around a bit.  I have to say Pompeii has great baths.  Bath has greater baths.

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That led to a return to the Vincent Van Gogh Foundation and the Vincent Van Gogh café which he painted as “Café Terrace by Night”, (Kroller-Muller).  We learned from the Tourist Office that the Foundation, while having a few drawings, has just one original Van Gogh oil.  Having “done” the original in the Netherlands, plus Carrières de Lumières recently, we didn’t go in.  And the café?  It’s a tourist trap so we opted for hot chocolates next door, where we learned the owner’s son at 20 was once a bull-fighter.  The café is a monument to the young man.  He is still alive, works in the cafe and is 43.

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Finally, there was the Cryptoportico – the underground foundations of the Roman Arles, built to support the ancient Roman forum above and now 6 m underground.  They are solidly impressive, being 65 metres long on three sides and house a few broken bits of 2000 year old capitals.   They were ok.  Paris has better catacombs.  So does London.  Not worth the €4.50 entry fee.

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Speaking of prices, we paid €9.50 each to buy a Monuments Pass to visit all these ruins.  It’s worthwhile as soon as you’ve visited two or more of them and worth investing in.  Sadly, none of them is worth their individual entry price, imho.  And while Van Gogh loved Arles and produced over 300 paintings here before the residents petitioned to have this crazy man confined to an asylum in nearby St Remy, only one remains in situ. 

Silly people didn’t realise the gold-mine they were sitting on when it came to Vincent.  And today I just think they should try harder to make more of their attractions.  I guess we are Roman ruined-out – or just tired of sight-seeing?  Anyhow, Arles is lovely and very definitely a must-see on your first visit to Provence.  We are more Middle Ages kind of people and don’t get very excited about Roman ruins.  I mean, apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?