Arles the Unexpected

June 18: We landed safely in Arles! Bade a thankful goodbye to Yahya, our rescuer, and had a second and much better breakfast. Never did fresh squeezed orange juice taste so good. We found the tourist information place, picked up maps and a tip for storing our luggage for the day till our new place was ready for us, and dragged our bags over to that storage place.

That done, we were free for the day. What a feeling of lightness!

Turns out Arles is another city with amazing Roman sites. Here, they have managed to restore the sites and make them usable in contemporary times. So the Amphitheater, built around 90 A.D., is used today for concerts and bullfights.

The Roman Theater, a century older than the Amphitheater, is used today for concerts and festivals.

That tall columnar structure is so impressive on its own, but it must have been awe-inspiring as part of the Theater's original building.

"Backstage" at the Theater, where fallen stones have been stored (and, I guess, taken as needed for other building projects over the centuries).

A view from the Theater out toward the town.

Both have been, and continue to be, restored thoughtfully as funds are raised. Both had been used throughout the centuries for a variety of useful functions ( the Amphitheater as a fortified city in the Middle Ages, the Theater as a handy stone quarry starting in the 5th century).

Arles, right next to the Rhône River, is a totally charming place, with so much to see. It's easy to understand why Van Gogh came here to live. What a marvelous substitute it made for our disappointingly aborted time in Les Baux. Random images and impressions from our day there follow:

I'm pretty sure this is Vincent that Cindy is telling her secrets to. This was in a garden in the building that housed the hospital Van Gogh checked into for many months .

The garden in the same place. It was a very peaceful place.

The Arles Vincent Van Gogh Foundation.

After roaming the ancient streets of Arles for many happy hours, we went back to the hotel by the river where we had stored our luggage, retrieved it, and made our way along the river to our Airbnb place.

Our home for a night was behind this antique door and up a few flights of antique stairs

View from the apartment early the next morning:

Dinner at a really lovely place half a block away, and to bed to rise early for our journey to Monaco.

Arles was just the curative we had needed for the recent events.

Next: a brief stop in Monaco.