The highlight of the Fontvielle loop ride was the town of Arles. We planned to just have lunch there and ended up spending most of the day, then racing back to our hotel late in the day (foregoing a visit to a 10th-century abbey in the process). Totally worth it, though – we explored the town, bartered with vendors at a market for old crap (successfully wearing down one of them throughout the day to secure a cool Bourdeaux bottle opener), and had a leisurely lunch at an outdoor cafe made famous by a 19th-century post-Impressionist painting.
Arles was a notable Roman city beginning in the 1st century BC, and its power peaked in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. The town features an old Roman forum and an amphitheater that’s still used for bullfighting (surprisingly popular in Provence and other areas of southern France).
The town also was the home of Van Gogh in 1888 and 1889, during which time he produced more than 300 paintings, including a framed print that was hanging up in our house at the time. We totally stumbled across the location featured in the print without realizing it was in Arles and it made our day.
Daudet’s Windmill outside Fontvielle, featured in his Lettres de mon moulin (Letters from My Windmill)
Nice estate encountered on the way to Arles
Town square / Roman forum in the middle of Arles
Cool fountain in the town square / Roman forum
Van Gogh!
A cafe in Arles – this looked familiar . . .
Van Gogh’s Cafe Terrace at Night
The perfect location for a few drinks before checking out Arles
Roman ruins incorporated into 19th-century building
The Romanesque (but, of course) church of St. Trophime, built between the 12th and 15th centuries
It sits on the foundation of the much earlier 5th-century basilica of Arles
Ornate scenes of the Last Judgement at the entrance
Built in 90 AD, the Arles amphitheater was capable of seating more than 20,000 spectators, and was built to provide entertainment in the form of chariot races and gladiatorial combat. It’s used today for bullfighting and concerts.
With the fall of the roman Empire in the 5th century, the amphitheater became a shelter for the population and was transformed into a fortress with four towers. The structure encircled more than 200 houses, becoming a legit town, with its public square built in the center of the arena and two chapels, one in the center of the building, and another one at the base of the west tower.
After surrendering our bikes at the end of Day 4, we spent the next day hanging out in Avignon, home to the popesters in the 14th century, thereby supplanting Rome as the seat of Western Christianity for a hundred years. The Papal Palace still remains, as do the walls of the medieval city, which gave it a compact, intimate feel.
Seven popes and two antipopes resided in Avignon between 1309 and 1403 (the real reason we’re mentioning this, of course, is so we could use the vaguely sinister term “antipope”). The Palais des Papes was built to house and protect the popes, becoming in the process the largest Gothic palace in Europe.
A closeup of the portal on the palace church reveals that all of the religious figures around the portal were either hacked off or beheaded during the French Revolution:
From the palace, we could see the Pont d’Avignon, which spans (well, used to span, anyway) the Rhone between Avignon and Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, where we began our bike tour. It’s the inspiration for the song Sur le pont d’Avignon. The bridge was built between 1177 and 1185, then destroyed 40 years later during the Albigensian Crusade when Louis VIII of France laid siege to Avignon to purge the Cathars (we still have Carcassonne, a stronghold of the Cathars, on our list of places to visit in southern France someday. . .).
The bridge was rebuilt with 22 stone arches, which tended to collapse when the Rhone flooded. The bridge was eventually abandoned in the 17th century. The four surviving arches on the bank of the Rhone are believed to have been built in around 1345 by Pope Clement VI during the Avignon Papacy.
The town of Avignon was great – we hung out, ate roasted chestnuts (it was, after all, early October), and enjoyed the place.
Villeneuve-les-Avignon seen from the city
City walls
Every city needs a pink rhino store
Coat-of-arms of a subsequent, Roman, pope on a building located opposite the Papal Palace
Courtyard of the converted convent where we stayed
Mmmm . . . pie
We had two memorable experiences while in Avignon. The first was when Kevin was having a few beers in a bar on one of the city squares while Lisa was shopping. It was pleasant out, so he took his beer and went to sit out in the square and enjoy the afternoon. One of the waiters came out to check on him a while later, went back in to get Kevin another beer. He returned returned with two. He sat down, had a beer, and they both gawked at the cacophony of the crazy drivers honking and trying to navigate the square during what appeared to be Avignon’s rush hour. After looking bemused at the mayhem all around them while they were happily drinking beers, the waiter laughed, stood up, and declared, “Le theatre!”
The other experience involved pastis, the regional liquor of Provence. We saw the old guys in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence drinking this yellowish liquor while playing bocce and we asked them what it was. That evening in Avignon, we ordered some as an aperitif at dinner. The waiter brought two glasses of clear, amber-colored pastis out, along with a small pitcher of water. We looked at this arrangement, shrugged, and drank the pastis. It was definitely an anise liquor, and really strong.
On the ride to the airport the next morning, we struck up a conversation with the taxi driver. He asked if we had pastis while we were in Provence. We told him about our experience and asked him what the deal with the pitcher of water was. Just like the waiter the day before, he laughed. He said that you don’t drink it neat – you add whatever amount of water you need from the pitcher to dilute the pastis and make it palatable, changing its appearance in the process to a creamy yellow.
It’s supposed to look like this:
(Note that the pastis we had in Provence should not in any way be confused with another Pastis, the undisputed master of the complex and agonizing pun setup.)
