Population Arles: 52,600.
Arles is this little town about an hour outside of Aix that is known for its pictoresque views of the countryside and many Roman ruins from the first century BC. I went with three friends from the group and we got to walk around and see the highlights of the city, while bearing the freezing cold Mistral wind (you think its nice and sunny outside but you're dead wrong). There was a huge Saturday market set up with lots of clothes, jewelry, gifts, and all sorts of food so we walked up and down the length of the main street for a while admiring all the nice great things to buy, Danny got a coat (he even bargained down the price) and we all got donuts, paella, clementines, crossiants, etc mini samplings that were all good. The market is a lot less touristy than the one in Aix, which follows the fact that the town in general is a lot less touristy, so prices were cheaper and things weren't as commercialized as we're used to, we got to see the locals doing their Saturday shopping. Anyways, Arles is a lot like Aix-Hotel de Ville square with an obelisk in the middle instead of a fountain (Aix gets to keep the fountains as its unique specialty), but also the market, there was a carousel right in the middle of another part of town, the streets reminded us of Aix a lot, little winding cobblestone roads with apartments going up four or five stories, windows with shutters closed or open dotting the alleys. We saw the Arles museum which has lots of roman statues in this courtyard, the Chappelle of St Trophime which is famous for its cloitre, which is where the monks would work and live, and its belltower which is a mix of Roman and Gothic architecture but is the most famous one in Provence. It had a little statue of some god on top of a cuppola shaped tower, different than the others I've seen. Hotel de Ville square had its three main facades as old Roman buildings and the obelisk in the middle was remade out of the stone from the original one (it had a big crack down the middle where it was refastened). Also learned that the Chapel of St Trophime is a UNESCO world heritage site-yeayea! Then we walked on to another square where there was a big statue of Frederic Mistral, and Le Cafe La Nuit, the cafe that inspire Van Gogh's painting which I think in English is called The Night Cafe? Maybe. Anyways, Van Gogh resided in Arles when he was in France, it was here that he cut off his ear and was hospitalized, so there were a fewmonuments to him and you could see his old bedroom (we opted not to). Lauren bought a santon, these little painted figurines for the creche that are typically provencal because they're characters only found in provence, for example Le Mistralier, the guy who's outo n the plains holding his hat and staff hunched over against the Mistral wind (thats the one she bought). There was a store that only sold santons-which are mad expensive. Back to the tour, we saw the old theatre of the Roman period and the amphitheatre which they are restoring so its looking brand new instead of like aruin (they still use it for bullfights and big events) and it was out of use for a couple hundred years until the 1800s and when they decided to reuse it they had to destroy 212 houses and 2 chapels that had been built inside the oval shaped dome- it had sprouted up a little village all to its own. We climbed up to this other little church where behind it was a great view of the countryside, we could see windtowers and towers from castles/an abbey of Montmajour, and all the curved tile rooftops of Arles. We walked up to the Rhone which was another amazing view of the water, saw the Thermes of Constantin, then sat down in a little cafe for lunch and it was time to go. Next we stopped quickly at the moulin (windmill) that was the inspriation for Alphonse Daudet's Lettres de Mon Moulin, his most famous work, and we saw where he lived (we learned about him in Provence history class just a few days before) and then we went to Les Baux de Provence, another perched village town with a big castle coming out of the rocky cliffs right at the top. It looked a lot like Gourdes so I heard (I got sick so I missed Les Baux :() and then we returned home. Yay for Provence sightseeing! and two quotes of the trip: "I would love to usher a child into the world right now, Connor Gabriel Winter, WELCOME!" and "So America was going to buy secrets from Hitler too but then...YEAH BUT...just wait until you're on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and you lose!"
Pics:
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