Roman ruins and a Provencal Identity

After leaving Marseilles we drove to Arles. We stayed for two nights at Le Calendal Hotel https://www.lecalendal.com. and parked MoneyPenny in the Parking du Centre, walking with luggage to the hotel. Arles is a quiet but amazing town with SO much to offer. We bought a combined ticket for monuments and museums at the Office de Tourisme and started at the Archeology Museum which was amazing. Apart from all the awesome Roman relics, we were blown away by the 50BC boat that was rescued and restored from the bottom of the Rhone about 20 year ago. Incredible! This museum really set the scene for what what available in the town.

The Roman Amphitheatre and Theatre are amazing and are active venues for performances. One of our discoveries was the Musee Arletan which explained SO much about the cultural identity of Provence. We learned about Frederic Mistral who formed a movement called the Felibrige that aimed to preserve the Provencal language and culture in the mid 1800's. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1904 and gave his almost 100,000 Franc prize money to buy the mansion that currently houses the Musee Arletan. We almost didn't visit here but were glad we did!

We then moved for two nights to Saint-Remy-de-Provence where I was keen to visit the asylum where Vincent Van Gogh had spent several years. The Vincent Van Gogh Walk takes you from the town to the asylum which, to this day continues to provide psychiatric care with a focus on art therapy.

We stayed for two nights at Le Saint Remy https://www.le-saint-remy.fr/fr which was a little bit of luxury and had a pool! We arrived on Wednesday which coincided with an extremely large and lively market.

Outside Saint-Remy-de-Provence we also drove to the hilltop towns of Les Beaux and Eygalieres - the former being VERY touristy and the latter much more authentic. Both involved climbing to ruins on hilltops and enjoying magnificent views.

Our final stop in the Provencal week was Avignon (with a side trip to Orange). We love the Avignon Festival in July and rented an AirBnB apartment for three nights in the town centre, enjoying all the street performers and the lively atmosphere. MoneyPenny had to stay in one of the public carparks as the town is a pedestrian zone during the festival. We also took a side trip to Orange to see the Roman Theatre and the Arc de Triumph.

We love antique rummaging so took a trip to the Sunday markets at L'Isle-sur-le-Sorgue. The flea market was a bit disappointing as were the antique shops. The general market was huge and very crowded, but the town is very pretty and worth a visit.

It's been an incredible week in Provence and we will (sadly) now start our journey back to the UK and onwards to Sydney. However, we WILL revisit the Route Nacionale 7 in my next post. :) Stay tuned.