Our first excursion of the trip was a morning bus ride to the town of Arles. The tour was a Van Gogh walking tour. Van Gogh lived here for a little over a year. During this time he painted over 200 paintings, including Starry Nights, the Yellow House, and the Café Terrace at Night. The town had copies of many of his pieces from this period and displayed them at the location of the painting. That helped us see what he saw.
Some of the paintings included The Yellow House (the front
part of the building no longer exists)…
and the Café Terrace on the Place du Forum.
We also visited the hospital where he stayed during one of his psychotic episodes. The courtyard was surrounded by arches...
and in the center was a pretty garden and fountain.
And there was a big souvenirs shop with lots of Vincent merchandise.
The town of Arles was very picturesque with lots of narrow windy streets with interesting, old buildings and churches…
and sidewalk cafes.
There was also a Roman Amphitheater.
We also hit the Arles Museum…which had only one Van Gogh (Portrait of a One-Eyed Man)...
some modern works by Nichole Eisenman...
a Picasso,
and a number of other artists.
The walk eventually took us to Rhone River...
where Vincent painted some of his starry night pictures.
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More Arles
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From there we went back to the bus for a drive through the countryside…
to the town of Tarascon. There we visited St. Martha’s Church, a 12th century church. It is a believed that St. Martha is buried in the church.
According to local legend St. Martha came to the area to
defeat a monster…so there are depictions of the monster in the area.
From there we walked over to the Chateau de Roi Rene…Castle of King Rene. It is a 15th century castle that has undergone some restoration. It is considered one of the most beautiful medieval castles in France. And it is very lovely…particularly from the outside.
There was massive central courtyard...
a small chapel…
lots of rooms and areas to explore...
and a garden.
One of the rooms had a contemporary art exhibit…very strange with lots of reproductions of vegetables and cuts of meat. Who knows what inspires artists???
We climbed a lot of stairs to get to the top…
where we had great views of the town and countryside...
and St. Martha's.
The castle was used for several hundred years as a prison
and the prisoners carved quite a bit of graffiti in the stone walls inside the castle.
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More Chateau de Roi Rene
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After visiting the castle we had some free time to explore Tarascon itself.
We eventually made it back to the ship and started our cruise up the Rhone.
One of the locks.
We stayed the night in the town of Avignon.
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