Arles not be back!

The time had come to leave what had been a wonderful couple of days in Nimes and surrounds. A beautiful area with ample Roman artefacts to amuse all. Our next stop was not too far down the road, We were to base ourselves in a Gite (cottage) in a town called Mallemort. Nothing of any note there itself other than its proximity to a geographical triangle of towns of interest, notably Arles, Orange and Aix-en-Provence.

Our first stop on the way from Nimes was to be Arles. Former home to a certain Vincent van Gogh, he spent a number of years there and it proved to be the inspiration and subject for a number of his paintings. There was a self-guided walk which you could follow to take in the original scenes for his paintings. Now, this was sadly not quite as exciting as it sounds. I hear some of you say, 'no surprise, you're no art lover', but even Clair (the 'arty' one of us) said it was difficult to get excited about standing in places which no longer looked anything like the paintings. To make things even less interesting there was not a single piece of Van Gogh's art in Arles at all. Arles was also the subject of Van Gogh's only ever painting (The Red Vines, 1888) he sold in his lifetime. Again, not to be found in Arles either. Curious! 

Arles was also a Roman cultural and religious centre full to the brim with your typical Roman sites. It had it all and not in too bad condition in spite of those medieval folks attempting to pillage and appropriate the structures. There was the Amphitheatre, and whilst impressive, did not live up to the previous impeccably preserved example we saw in Nimes. Then there was the Theatre, which had been considerably restored but was nonetheless grand. Also present in the small town of Arles were a Cryptoporticus, therefore also a Forum (I'll get to this), and the Roman Baths.

At this point, it would be prudent to inform you that we have no photos for the next 2 weeks worth of sites and experiences courtesy of some low-life scumbag in Florence, who stole not just mine, but also Clair's camera. To say we weren't impressed is somewhat of an understatement but it is what it is! We also learnt a valuable lesson in backing up photos. I.e. more often! Expect stock photos of some of the places mentioned!

So, we spent the morning strolling around these wonderful sites, which I feel if we had only visited Arles would have been far more impressive than I felt they were at the time. It got to lunchtime and 'Roman fatigue' was setting in. We sat ourselves for a lunch in the shadow of the Amphitheatre and tucked into a delicious aubergine and goats cheese salad for Clair and a rather average and watery steak hache for me.

After lunch we endeavoured to finish what we'd started with the Roman sites and headed for the Baths. What we had already forgotten is that we were in France. Everything was shut and wouldn't open again for another hour. We contemplated waiting for the Baths to re-open, but thought better of it, citing the Roman Baths in Bath as our reason/justification for not wanting to see any more. We strolled to the Cryptoporticus, which fortunately was just opening. I was quite looking forward to this. A set of sub-subterranean caves/vaults built by the Romans as foundations used to support the 'portico' (the arched porch at the edge of a Forum). It sadly didn't live up to expectation, mostly due to lack of any signage or description of what we were looking at. Only subsequent research told us what it was we walked through.

We left, having had our Roman fill for the day and drove onto our Gite. As the title of this entry suggests we will not be rushing back to Arles. 

Little was known about or expected from the Gite as we had booked it quite last minute. But as we drove through the countryside, never could we have imagined the absolutely stunningly presented Gite in glorious Provençal countryside (in case you find yourself in the area check it out: Mas de l'Ancienne Magnanerie)

We stopped along the way at a supermarket for all our self-catering needs for the next 3 nights. We settled in and enjoyed the first night on our lovely terrasse with a smorgasbord style feast and free-flowing beer. We also met the rather over-friendly local dog named 'Willie'. He had obviously smelt the Toulouse sausages we had fried up and decided he wanted in on it so sat himself quite comfortably on our patio. Although he was sat very nicely, he was also rather mangy looking so we chose to ignore him. However, his neat trick was scooting himself along the ground to edge closer to the table in the desperate hope that we would cave. Sadly not this time Willie! But, after we had finished dinner and were sat around the American family staying in the other Gite came across, saw that the dog was there and decided they had leftovers. Willie was beside himself with joy. What they hadn't realised is that they fed him on our patio. He lingered within sniffing distance for the rest of our stay!