Arles

Another retro-flashback post! Now brought to you by Windows 10 hololens (TM) technology!

When Fouad and Cathie first visited us back in December, we drove out to Arles, a city located along the road back to Toulouse. Arles is ancient city located on the Rhone in southern France. The city has a long history. It was founded in about 800BC by the Ligurians (thanks wikipedia) and was conquered by the Romans in 104BC. Arles features a few world heritage sites – notably a Roman theater and an arena.

Arles was also home to Van Gough for some time. He painted about 300 paintings of provence in his time there, some of which are quite famous: The Night Cafe, the Yellow Room, Starry Night Over the Rhone, and L’Arlésienne.

We knew for sure that we wanted to see the roman heritage sites in Arles – so when we arrived, we headed in to town and purchased tickets to see the underground catacombs, the arena and the theater.

As a city, Arles is fairly flat. The geology of Arles is quite different though. The entire city is built on a fairly rough and uneven bit of land. When the Romans founded it, they flattened the land by building a set of catacombs (arches) to serve as a level foundation for the buildings they constructed. The stone foundations still exists today after almost 2000 years of use and support numerous buildings and neighborhoods throughout the city.

We headed into the Catacombs near city hall and descended about 10-15 meters underground. There we stepped through a door into a large underground space supported by columns and arches. Old roman relics (capitals from columns and carvings) were strewn along walls and left to collect cobwebs in the shadows.

We walked along the main chamber, and eventually emerged into a series of tunnels which plunged deeper into the city. Most openings were walled off or blocked with gates, but it’s clear that the network of chambers was pretty vast. It would have been a really fun place to explore with our trusty SureFire headlamps. 🙂

Since the place was pretty devoid of tourists, we started to have some fun. The girls hid in the shadows and jumped out trying to scare us at every corner. We found spotlights embedded in the floor that they could stand in front of to look like vampires emerging from the depths. We played hide and go seek. It was a fun way to experience ancient ruins. 🙂

When we had our fill of spooky noises, we headed back up into the city and made our way to the Arena.

The arena is truly spectacular. While it’s not as large or as complete as the one in Rome, it is still a functional arena until recently was used by the city for bull fighting and other sporting events. The first two levels of the arena remain relatively intact. You can walk through the lower levels and see where the populace would enter into the arena, mill around, buy things from vendors and make their way to their seats in the arena. The upper levels were dismantled long ago, and the stone which once made up the arena was repurposed to construct buildings in the city. At one point in the city’s history, the arena even contained houses and was fortified to protect against attacks.

   

We all wandered around the arena for 45 minutes or so. I explored the lower chambers with my iphone’s flashlight, while the girls did the rounds on the bleachers. We even climbed some of the higher towers to get a view of the city.

It’s amazing to me to think about how advanced Roman architecture was. The fact that such a huge structure still stands today is incredible in it’s own right – but the idea that these civilizations would invest so much time and resources into building these massive structures is amazing. These buildings were beautiful and by far more advanced than any of the medieval castles which followed them.

We then headed to the old roman theater. To be fair, there’s very little left of this structure. Like the arena, most of the theater was disassembled and used to build the city of Arles. As a result, only a hint of what the theater once was was visible.

As with all roman theaters, a semi-circle of seats extending up four stories faced a stage area. The stage was a large structure, built up multiple stories and decorated with marble columns and statues. A pulley system enabled the theater troupe to raise and lower a curtain (into the stage) between scenes.

Not much is left of the stage now. A few columns remain standing, and you can see the outline of where the stage once stood. The gates along the edges of the theater give you a sense for how tall these structures must have been. At the time they must have been stunning.

The girls ran around on stage, pretending to be in plays. They explored the ruins, looked at carvings, and imagined being in ancient rome. The adults found a video booth which showed digitally recreated models of what the theater must have originally looked like. The video was impressive and again, I was blown away by the sheer scale and effort it must have taken to build these monuments.

At this point we were starving – so we headed to a cafe nearby, sat down and had a nice Bistro style lunch. As we ate, a guitarist serenaded the restaurant, playing and singing songs by the gypsy kings. The girls were blown away by the music and the passion of the guitarist. We promised to take them to see flamenco when we visited Barcelona.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering the streets of Arles. It was a Sunday, so the town felt empty. For the most part the streets were deserted, and only a few shops were open. We tried to find and take a tour of Van Gough’s house, but sadly it was closed. We did manage to find the cafe which inspired “The Night Cafe” painting – which was very cool to see.

We also walked the streets, and found some cool shops (pottery chickens!).

 

Finally, as we were walking out of town back to our car, we stumbled upon the meeting place for a performance the city was going to put on for Christmas. The show was going to be a life-sized manger celebrating the birth of Jesus. People were dressed in traditional provence outfits representing a variety of different artisans. There were farmers, women with baskets of fish, rabbits, produce, snails, etc. The girls loved the outfits and posed for photos. Everyone seemed to be having a great time.

 

By this time the evening was upon us, and we still had a long drive home. We said our goodbye’s to Fouad and Cathie and headed home on the autoroute. While Arles isn’t a destination I’d necessarily go out of my way to visit again, it was a great trip and it was amazing to see the history and architecture there.