Adventure to France 2023 – Day 6: Arles & Van Gogh Tour

March 30, 2023

Dear Adventure Avenue,

We got up on the early side, and I went to the Boulangerie I’d found the night before to get us some breakfast.

I got us two tomato and ham (jambon) sandwiches on a really soft fresh bread as well as two pain au chocolates (chocolate croissants). As I was ordering, a pigeon flew into the shop and landed on a display of country bread that was sitting in the front corner of the shop. I helped shoo away the pigeon.

Then I walked back to our hotel where we enjoyed our sandwiches before getting picked up on our tour.

Our first stop was at a reproduction of the bridge that Van Gogh had painted. (The original was destroyed by a bombing during one of the world wars).

Hôtel Dieu

Hôtel Dieu is where Van Gogh was taken after he chopped his ear off. He painted here as well.

We walked to a church that’s since lost its cathedral status and learned about different types of architecture as the church was of both Romanesque and gothic design.

Romanesque is when there is little to no windows and the roof is supported on just two pillars. Gothic is when there are more windows (think stained glass) because they are able to distribute the weight between 4 pillars, often creating crosses on the ceiling.

Theatre Antique

I was surprised by the amount of Roman structures in Arles – I didn’t realize that there were Roman things there.

The theater and the amphitheater both had to be partially rebuilt because they were used until Napoleon’s time as housing. People built dwellings within these walled structures.

Amphitheatre (arena)

The amphitheatre was a small scale version of the Colloseum which is recently seen in Rome. The guide and I climbed to the top of the Middle Ages (ie not roman) tower that was added as a lookout point to see the surrounding Arles.

From here we saw the remnants of a bridge that stood where a floating Roman one had stood. The more modern one had been bombed during one of the world wars.

Café where Van Gogh painted

This café was not yellow in Van Gogh’s time, despite the modern representation of yellow used. In fact the yellow in Van Gogh is his expansion of light from a single candle because he liked to play with light.

Hôtel de Ville

This is the city hall. Its ceiling is made entirely of stone, no cement is used.

The stone roof fits together like a puzzle.

Restaurant Lou Marquès

This restaurant was inside the Hotel Jules Cesar. I had the scallops (entrée) and Mere had the chicken entrée. Entrée means first course, so we were called “little birds” for not ordering a second (main) course. Instead, we both got the strawberry chocolate dessert.

We saw the famous white horses and bulls on our way out of Arles from the car.

Les Baux-de-Provence

We first drove up to a look out point to see the majestic city from afar. This city is very cool because up until fairly recently, it was only accessible via a long staircase because otherwise it was entirely walled off or simply inaccessible due to the cliff it sat on.

One of the Kings (I think a Louis or maybe Napoleon?) had destroyed the chateau with canons so it’s in ruins now.

They had to destroy this house to allow for a road

We were then dropped off at the more recently added road entrance (they destroyed a stone house that was in the way of this road) and started walking up. The guide and I walked all the way up to the top of the hill and saw a beautiful view of the surrounding area.

We didn’t have time to go into the chateau ruins though I’m not entirely sure that was possible.

St. Paul de Mausole

This is where Van Gogh spent a year of his life and was quite happy. His brother eventually made him leave to be cared for by the family doctor, but Van Gogh was happy to be among people who were crazier than him. He painted a lot of the surrounding sights and nature with the mountains as his backdrop.

You can experience these spots still today- particularly with the olive groves that he painted because olive trees don’t grow very fast, so they are still more or less as he painted them.

After the tour, we got a drink in the bar. I just had Perrier to rehydrate after our busy day.

Dinner

We tried to go to a pizza place that was 5 minutes from our hotel, only to arrive and find out that it was closed til April 4. Instead, we went to a cafe next to the one we’d visited yesterday as their kitchen was still closed.

We went to Lou Mistrau because all we wanted was something simple like a croque monsieur, which is exactly what we got.

The hotel bartender tried to get us to eat dinner there but their croque was twice the price and had a bunch of unnecessary additives that we didn’t want. We really enjoyed our simple dinner.