Arles Tuesday 6 May, Day 13

Set off today to explore Arles more thoroughly. The Office de Tourisme have a map with a Van Gogh walk, a Roman walk, a Middles Ages walk, a Renaissance walk, and a modern Arles walk. Unfortunately the English version was sold out, and the one in French we had used very tiny print in very hard to read colours, and so thanks to poor eyesight and limited language comprehension, we managed to spend a bit of time walking around rather dreary streets looking for things that were in fact somewhere else altogether. But after a whole we got the hang of things.

The Cathedral St Trompine has a splendidly macabre collection of relics on display, including a bit of Saint Anne, which Anne was very pleased to see. Highlight of the day was the Cloister of Saint Tromphime, XIIth century with wonderful medieval carvings. It has a stone roof above the cloister, around the rim of which runs a stone bench, worn smooth by many monkly backsides over hundreds of centuries. A lovely spot to sit and watch the blackbirds flying in and out of their roosts in the Cathedral bell tower next door.

We wandered happily round the town, visiting the Roman Baths of Constantine, Les Elychamps with its Church of St Gilles, which was one of four starting points for the Camino de Santiago de Compostella, and the Cryptoportiques, massive Roman foundations for what was in their day the Forum, of which only a few vestiges remain above ground.

We had our best meal yet in France in a little restaurant over towards the Arena, then strolled home via the embankment by the Rhône.  The current makes the surface ripple in away which breaks up reflections. Our hotel is in fact very close to the spot where Van Gogh painted La Nuit Etoille - the starry night - which we saw in Paris in the Musee D'Orsay. Here is a picture from our hotel window looking in much the same direction.

We have come to love Arles and will be sorry to leave tomorrow, heading on for Marseilles which I doubt will quite so laid back and charming.