Your Weekly Voilà: Rick Steves had it wrong. Arles is a gem to explore 💕✨🇫🇷

Light drew Van Gogh to Arles. The grey skies of his homeland, the Netherlands, and his two years working in Paris made him crave sunshine and brighter colors. Enchanted by the landscape and city, Van Gogh created more than 300 works of art during his 15 months in Arles.

Unfortunately, not one of his paintings remains in the city.

For the ancient Romans and the Greeks, it was trade along the Rhone River with access to the Mediterranean that made Arles a key location. The spectacular Roman ruins crowned by a 2,000-year-old amphitheater are a testament to the city's importance during the Empire.

Fortunately, plenty of ancient artifacts remain in the city.

It was both the artist community and its long history that drew me to Arles for the first time in 2007. Sipping a Pastis on a café terrace, I thought Rick Steves had it all wrong. He wrote that Arles was "unpolished and a little dirty." It's not "shabby." Instead, the city wears its patina of a bygone era well. Perhaps, Steves was trying to keep the place all to himself. For me, I was smitten when we stayed in a quaint hotel overlooking the Place du Forum. Where else can you find so much art, architecture, and history in a sunbaked, southern town in southern France? Avignon? Oui. Absolutely.

Mais Arles has a personality all its own. It has a different vibe. It's hip, artsy, filled with a blend of Spanish and French culture that is clearly evident when checking out the menu of the local brassieres. There isn't a walled medieval center. But the city is drenched in Roman ruins that seem to be at the end of every turn.

Arles is an often overlooked gem that deserves a long weekend to experience and appreciate.

In September 1888, Van Gogh painted the Café Terrace à Nuit, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. The café still stands on the Place du Forum. The photo below is one I took in 2007 when it was still called Le Cafe La Nuit. I thought the apartment above the café would be fabulous to rent. It's now called the Van Gogh Café and offers a fair touristic menu but with a 3-star setting.

Quick note: If you go looking for the Yellow House where Vincent rented several rooms, you'll find that it's no longer there. It was destroyed during an Allies bombing in 1945. But there is a very good bakery in the same spot.

Remnants of the Roman Forum Temple are embedded in the facade of the Hotel Nord-Pinus. You can visit the Cryptoportiques, an underground arcaded gallery dating to the 1st-century BCE. Built as the foundation of the Roman Forum, it extends from the Place du Forum to the Place de la République. It consists of three double parallel tunnels in the shape of a "U."

Situated on a cliff overlooking the Rhone river, Arles is the gateway to the Camargue and the Mediterranean Sea. Long before 19th-century artists discovered the town and 21st-century tourists enjoyed its charming cafés, Arles served as an important trading port. It is one of the oldest cities in France.

Arles is first mentioned as Theline, a Gaulic merchant town that was important for both the local tribes and the Greeks, who were based in Massilia or modern-day Marseilles. In 535 BCE, Theline was captured by another Gaulic tribe, the Saluvii, who changed the name to Arelate. Julius Caesar refounded the town in 46 BCE as a colony. The Romans took full control of the city in 123 CE. Emperor Constantine the Great used the city as an imperial residence in the 4th century. (The ruins of his public bathhouse can be toured today.)

Arles remained an important capital of the western Roman Empire until it was captured by the Visigoths in 471. They in turn were sacked by the Muslim caliphate, Umayyads, who expanded their empire from the Iberian peninsula along the Mediterranean coast in the first half of the 8th century. But by the end of that same century, the Umayyads lost to the King of the Franks - Pepin the Short - who would then pass his vast territorial conquests to his son, Charlemagne.

There is a lot of history here but the bottom line is that everyone wanted to control the trade wealth of Arles.

A view of Arles in the late 1st century CE. At the top of the image, you can see the Roman Circus for the chariot races. This is now the site of the Musée de l'Arles antique. You can also see how close the older Roman theater is to the Roman arena on the bottom left. The Roman Forum Temple is in the center of the illustration. The bathhouse of Constantine is on the right near the Rhone river. Lastly, the Roman bridge depicted at the bottom right was unique in that it was not fixed. Rather, it consisted of a pontoon-style bridge of boats with towers and drawbridge at each end. The boats were secured in place by anchors and were tethered to twin towers built just upstream of the bridge. The unusual design was a way to cope with the river's frequent and violent floods which would have destroyed a more conventional bridge. Unfortunately, nothing remains of the ancient bridge.

Historians and archeologists are mostly in agreement that the 1st-century BCE bust pulled from the Rhone river in 2007 is most likely Julius Caesar. It is part of the collection at the Musée de l'Arles antique.

Arles or Arelate's early beginnings in the 6th century BCE already confirmed it as a merchant city given its location next to the Rhone river. Arelate developed into a prosperous commercial center under the Greeks and expanded under the Roman Empire. The archaeological finds discovered in the river - ceramics, bronze tableware, metal ingots and bars - point to the importance of trade between Arles and Northern Europe and across the Mediterranean world.

The Romans conquered Arelate and then built a grand city. Constructed in the last quarter of the 1st century, the amphitheater, les Arènes, was inspired by Rome's Colosseum, which is slightly older. The Arena towered over Arles. Today, it's surprisingly well intact. The 2-tiered arena can hold 20,000 spectators who came to watch epic battles and gladiator fights.

With the fall of the Western Empire in the 5th century, the amphitheater was transformed into a fortress with four towers to protect the population against the Germanic tribes. The structure encircled 200 houses, establishing a town within a town. Its public square was built in the center of the arena and had two chapels. At the beginning of the 19th century, removal of the medieval additions began and by 1830, the first event was organized in the emptied arena - a race of the bulls. Bullfighting continues today along with other events such as classical concerts.

A drawing of the Arles Arena during the medieval period.

The Arena is a perfect place to begin your tour of Arles. There is public parking nearby and you can work your way into the center of the city.

You can still see original galleries that were organized so the building could empty in a short time without spectators from different social classes ever meeting.

Despite it being the height of tourist season, we had the place mostly to ourselves this past July. Travel restrictions and the suspension of large tourist buses due to the pandemic have brought a bit of respite for often overcrowded tourist destinations in Europe.

I love the beauty of the 2,000 year-old limestone. The Arena is continually being cleaned to keep the destruction of the pollution at bay.

Weathered sculpture hides in plain sight.

The central area was reserved for the games separated from the seating by a stone wall - the podium wall. Much of the podium separating the lower few rows of seating is present, including a 2nd-century inscription praising the generosity of the local magistrate, Caius Junius Priscus. The original floor would have been made of wood and raised higher than the present day's. The towers on three of the points of the axes of the amphitheater are remains from the medieval construction.

Next door, you find the Roman colonnaded theater. It was built by Caesar's adoptive son and successor Augustus. It predates the amphitheater by a century. Built on a small hill around the year 12 CE, it has seating for 8-10,000 spectators. The site was dedicated to Apollo and richly decorated in honor of the emperor Augustus. Bien sûr.

Where the Roman Arena put on action-adventure entertainment for the masses, the Roman Theatre offered plays and pantomimes for a more refined audience.

The theater was fortified in the Middle Ages and lost its outer structure to encroaching construction work. Much of its stone was reused for neighboring buildings. The Roman remains were rediscovered in the late 17th century and over the next two centuries, archaeological excavations unearthed its Roman purpose. What remains are a few seating rows, the orchestra section with its pink and grey, checkered stone flooring, the stage curtain area, and two tall marble columns topped with a fragment.

The theater continues to be used for artistic performances.

Some fragments of the exterior arcades remain.

You have to use your imagination here: Two staircases connected the orchestra to the stage. Excavations have revealed the stage’s main features. It was approximately 6 meters deep and flanked by decorated, stone wings. There were three levels of columns and a large statuary, including the colossal statue of Augustus which is currently in the Musée de l'Arles antique. The famous statue of the "Venus of Arles" is kept at the Louvre in Paris.

Some of the seating is original and the pink and grey marble of the orchestra is also original.

The original elaborate stage set had over a hundred Corinthian columns, of which only two are standing today.

Behind the stage, you can find the "graveyard" of ancient, decorated stone fragments.

Over the past 2,000+ years, how many footsteps have touched these same steps I climbed last July?

After experiencing the monuments, one must see the collection of Greek and Roman artifacts at the Musée de l'Arles antique or Musée bleu. Through archaeology, art, and history, you are provided a glimpse into what everyday life was like at the time. It is a contemporary blue-walled building built on the remains of the Roman Circus and houses artifacts found in and around Arles. The Rhone river has provided more than one treasure hidden in its murky bottom.

The one-story collection takes you through the history of Arles beginning with prehistory through the late Roman Empire. You view the vast exhibition in wide-open spaces, arranged in chronological and thematic order. The ample space allows you to interact with objects, moving around them and experiencing them closely.

An early Christian marble sacophagus from the beginning of the 4th century contained the skeleton remains of a man and a woman. They are represented in the center medallion. Stories from both the Old and New Testaments are depicted in the stone carving. Note how every bit of the surface is covered.

The Musée de l'Arles antique has the largest collection of sarcophagi outside of the Vatican Museum in Rome.

Here we have an older sarcophagus from the 2nd century CE. It is decorated with pagan patterns and plant motifs. To deflect evil, the head of Medusa is there to petrify the enemy with a simple glance. Thus, she protected the grave.

This architectural decoration depicts a theatrical mask representing evil. The features of masks were exaggerated so as to be seen by those in the back of the theater.

The Arles Rhone 3 is the gem of the museum's collection. This 1st-century Roman cargo barge was discovered in the Rhone river, just beside the city center of Arles. This is an exceptional discovery because ancient wooden ships disintegrate 0ver time and thus, few make it to the 21st century. But this boat sank under the weight of its 27-ton cargo - limestone - and was buried in silt, preserving its oak planks and iron fasteners.

Discovered in 2004 but not removed from the river until 2011, the team had to secure both the funds and the technology to raise and see to the ship's multi-year restoration. It went on display in 2013.

This Roman trading vessel is 31 meters (102 feet) long and only 3 meters wide. It would have been towed along the river by slaves. You view the barge without obstruction. Thus, the visitor can inspect its original features as they would have appeared to the Romans who built it.

There is an excellent three-part series on the Arles Rhone 3's discovery and restoration on YouTube. Click here to view the episodes.

I am enamored with everyday objects. Coins, lamps, tools, jewelry when displayed together, help to tell the story of ordinary ancient life. Musée Blu groups objects by both time periods and how the items were used in homes, social rituals, trade, and religious practice. You appreciate the simple objects for their artistic value but also for what they represent about cultures both different and similar to our own.

An Etruscan helmet from the 2nd-century BCE. It was formed from a single piece of copper alloy. The two holes on each side would allow for the attachment of a cheek guard.

Spindles, weaving tools, needles carved from wood and bone. I bet they would still spin a beautiful thread.

Sometimes my favorite things in a museum are the smallest. 1st-century CE Roman gold ring. You cannot help but imagine the life of the wearer.

When studying ancient glass, you discover how little has changed in the craft over thousands of years.

A lead pipeline crossed the Rhone river and supplied the city with water. Many of the pipes were still welded together and serviceable when discovered.

The museum has its own workshop for restoring ancient mosaics. Several excellent examples are on permanent display. An elevated viewing platform provides a view that allows one to take in the entire floor.

These 3rd and 4th-century Roman mosaics were recovered from the Trinquetaille quarter of Arles on the right bank of the Rhone, just across from the town center. Here, the wealthy inhabitants had their extensive villas filled with elaborate decoration.

The finest floor mosaic found at Trinquetaille shows at its center a seated young man holding a circle with the Zodiac signs. He represents both the passing of time and the passing of a year.

No doubt the Rhone river has more ancient treasures hidden within her riverbed. But there is Arles' medieval past to consider. Well preserved within her art and architecture, the impact of Christianity changed the city once more but very gradually. The transformation required the building of churches, conversion of elites, and widespread adoption of Christian beliefs by the local people. Clearly, there is a long history of pagan practices deeply rooted in Arles that needed to be woven into new traditions. Next week, I'll continue the story and introduce you to Arles' medieval side.

À bientôt,

Karen 🇫🇷