Marseilles Wednesday 7 May, Day 14

 A short and pleasant train journey deposited us at Marseilles Saint Charles Station, and we caught the Metro to the old port and a short walk to our hotel. Marseilles at lunch time seemed a bit overwhelmingly busy to us - it is France's second biggest city and it certainly has the bustle and jostle of a lot of lives being lived in a small space.

Weather is warmer and the light seems brighter.  Anne's knee has been giving her some trouble so we spent some time searching for a suitable knee brace, without success, and settled for a packet of paracetamol instead.  Anne decided on a bath and a rest, while I set out to explore. Visited the Museum of Archaeology which had interesting Egyptian, African and Oceanic artefacts (including the mummy of an ibis the like of which I had not seen before), the splendid Marseille_Cathedral, and the new Museum of Mediterranean Civilization, MuMEC. There is a lot of money being spent in Marseilles, to establish it as a "cultural capital". The Museum is one of the outputs, and it is certainly popular. I did learn a few things while I was in there but the crowds and the layout of the collection made it heavy going.  I like museums like the Musee de Cluny which are logically arranged and where the provenance of the objects on display and the relationship between them is explained, and where you are free to find your own way around and through the collection. 

The public spaces around the MuMEC by contrast to the interior spaces, are very nicely designed, very convivial and open with fantastic views.  Walked home through Fort Saint Jean which guards one side of the mouth of the old harbour.  For dinner we went to a Tunisian restaurant for couscous which was delicious and relatively economical, then a twilight walk along the quay, then back to our room to admire the view from our terrace, looking over the old port towards the magnificent structure of Note Dame de la Garde which seems to watch over the city.   We are looking forward to exploring more tomorrow.

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.

Arles Monday 5 May, Day 12

Today we took a tour to the Carmargue and the historic town of Saintes-Marie de la Mer. We were in the back of an old long wheelbase Landrover, the suspension of which had seen better days, we discovered as we bounced down the dusty pot-holed back roads. I can see why ornithologists get excited about the place - there were large flocks of flamingos, terns, herons, egrets, gulls, ducks, swans and other types I could identify, as well as lots of chaps toting expensive and very substantial lens stalking purposefully down the little back roads. In autumn the wetlands are really packed with migratory birds - over 350 species.  Flamingos breed and live permanently in the Camargue wetlands.

The Camargue is famous for its horses which are a unique breed, white and stocky, strong looking animals which were wild until a few decades ago. The foals are born dark brown or black but become white by age one. Camargue bulls are also a specific breed and the locals seem very patriotic about them.  They are always black, smaller than Spanish bulls and have horns growing upward.  Spanish bulls are bred in the Camargue for bullfights which still take place in Ste-Marie and Arles.  We saw so many Camargue horses, foals, and bulls of all ages (kept in paddocks with their age peers) that we thought we'd never get to the ancient Church by the sea.

The town of St Marie de Le Mere sits at mouth of the Petit Rhône on the Mediterranean  and has been a site of human habitation since well before the Romans arrived. I don't know what the earlier inhabitants would make of the town today. It is cheerful mix of hotels, market, bars, restaurants and souvenir shops.  The church Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is Romanesque with a stone barrel vaulted ceiling. It was built in the 9th century on the site of a much older building, and still has what is called a pagan altar in the crypt.

The Church was used as a place of refuge for the villagers during raids by Vikings and Saracens. The roof of the crypt of the church is black with smoke from centuries of candles, and it houses the statue of Saint Sara, the patron saint of the Romani people. On 24th May each year, there is a Roma festival where the statue is taken down to the sea and immersed in the water and then paraded through the town with the horses and bulls adorned with flowers. Saint Sara is taken very seriously - the crypt was hot from the banks of burning candles offered in her honour, and there were queues waiting to pay their respects to her. Upstairs there are paintings of the two Marys who left Jerusalem in a boat and were washed ashore here.  The two Marys are the sisters of the Virgin Mary, the three daughters of St Anne by her three husbands.  We saw paintings of these same stories in Spain. They seem to belong to a much older version of the Catholic canon.

Arles Sunday 4 May, Day 11

With some reluctance we packed up this morning and headed back down the train station to catch our train to Arles.  We really enjoyed Avignon,  The regional trains are great. Less than half an hour to Arles but it has a very different feel - well, what we've seen of it so far. Seems to be poorer, grittier and more decayed than Avignon. Lots of the houses look like they are just on this side of collapse.  But it has its charm. 

We dumped our bags at the hotel and set off to explore. The Roman presence is very marked, with the Arena largely intact, the Theatre still with some columns standing and amazing carvings lying in the grass, and the traces of the chariot racing track still preserved near the Museum of Antiquities. The Museum houses an enormous Roman barge which sank in the Rhône near Arles.

Apparently the barge was towed upstream by either human or animal power. Given how fast the current flows, just thinking how hard that would be makes me feel tired. A great piece of archaeological rescue work to retrieve it and so many artefacts from the river bed.

Being Sunday lots of the town seemed deserted tonight but we found a nice family run restaurant which had simple but delicious food. On the way home we walked past the Roman Arena, with the deserted street and the dark sky - magical

Avignon Saturday 3 May, Day 10

First stop today the Avignon Archaeology Museum, which for 1 Euro each, was the best value of trip. The collection of Greek, Etruscan and Roman carvings and pottery was stunning, and all the better for not being too big. The collection nicely curated with informative brochures in many of the rooms, and the nice man watching over it all  let us take a nicely printed guide to the whole collection .... in French but it will be good reading practice.  

After lunch  we visited Angladon museum, which had a Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition plus some other 19th century paintings. After that, Anne retired for a rest, while  I headed off to the Calvert Museum which houses paintings from the 15th century to the 20th. includes some Breugels senior and junior, some Dutch very brown paintings, and plenty more. There is also a collection of Egyptian artefacts.

By this time the wind was roaring through the plane trees - 64 kilometres an hour according to my phone which gets a local weather download.  The wind makes me glad that we decided not to sign up for a cycling Province tour - it would be no fun cycling in this no matter what direction you were heading.

I decided to get a bit of exercise to counteract the steady impact of too many pastries for breakfast, and set off to explore the other side of the Rhône. I nearly got blown away on the bridge but made it to the other side, and walked to the town of Villanueve-les-Avignon, which lies at the foot of the impressive and still largely intact castle of Saint-Andre, built in the 14th century. The road up to the castle winds through a well preserved own of little streets and beautiful stone buildings. I managed to get thoroughly lost, but eventually found my way back to the main road, where I caught a bus back to Avignon.

We had a lovely meal at a little restaurant just down the little street next to the hotel, a pleasant conclusion to a great visit to Avignon. The pace of life is more relaxed, the pressure and competition with other people less, and there has been plenty to keep us busy

Today's picture is of the Archaeology Museum - Anne is sitting on the couch taking notes. It is a lovely setting for the collection.

Tomorrow morning we are off to Arles.

Avignon Friday 2 May, Day 9

A bit late starting out today. When we got to the Palais des Papes, the conga line queue was in place and moved at glacial speed. Despite being a holiday weekend and one of the busiest (so we were told by a fellow queue-ee) there were only two people selling tickets. Perhaps they do it on purpose to keep the crowd inside spaced out.

The building has had a chequered history. During the Western Schism, it was besieged for 5 years in an attempt to persuade Benedict xii to resign.  It has been used as barracks, prison and stables, it has been burned, its walls have been painted over, and most of its statues beheaded. But the basic structure is still largely intact. Not the most cheerful place in Avignon however.

To blow away the sense of oppression that hit us somewhere in the palace, we headed up onto the park on Roche des Doms, the rocky outcrop that was probably the site the first settlements in Avignon. Lovely gardens with beautiful roses and great views over the city and the river. We had lunch contemplating the lake and the ducks then headed down to the Musee du Petit Palais nearby. This museum has a collection of over three hundred paintings from the middle ages to the Renaissance, arranged chronologically. I broke my all time record for the number of Madonna-and-Baby-Jesus paintings seen in a single session. Fascinating to see how different themes, poses and ideas evolve over the centuries.

We liked the bored looking angel at the bottom right of this painting.

By the end of the visit, we were seriously in need of a cup of tea, and luckily there is a wonderful Salon de The in the courtyard garden, where we sat with a silver teapot and two tartes du jour under a mighty plane tree.

Anne retired for a rest and I visited the Pont Saint-Benezet, the famous Pont d'Avingon of the song, or what is left of it after war and floods have swept away most of its 22 arches, leaving only 4 still standing. Amazing that a bridge which has not been used since the 17th century is probably the main thing most people know Avignon for.

A chilly windy night, definitely not an outdoor café night. We visited a nearby Italian restaurant for a pizza, then a bit of a stroll down some more little back streets, then back to our room to regroup for tomorrow.

Avignon Thursday 1 May, Day 8

Headed over via Metro to Gard de Lyon. There seemed to be a huge number of French people with suitcases heading the same way, so it was easy to follow the flow. Also lots of stalls selling flowers. After a while we realised today is May Day, and a public holiday in France.  Good that we booked the train tickets ages ago, for the train was totally packed.  There were lots of family groups, with numbers of babies being cute and little children tearing up and down the carriage and a generally happy holiday long weekend feeling. The TGV fast trains are brilliant - comfortable, convenient, fast and convivial.

We were sitting opposite a man about our vintage who was a native of Avignon. He gave us French magazines to read and when we got to Avignon he guided us onto the train to the centre of town, then walked with us to the street in which our Hotel is located and showed us the way to go. A really kind and lovely man who was genuinely interested in talking to us, really open, curious and hospitable.
Thanks to our guide's assistance, we found the hotel without any problem. Much warmer in Avignon than in Paris, and a warm wind - the mistral - blowing, not unlike a warm blustery spring day in Melbourne.

Avignon is an amazing place. The 4 kilometres of 14th century city walls are still intact as are many of the buildings and tiny streets of the old city enclosed therein. We had dinner in one of the open air restaurants along Place de l'horloge -cheap, cheerful and not too bad - and a Demi bottle of Cote de Ventoux, then wandered up past the Palais des Papes, which is just gobsmacking when you first come upon it. As the name suggests, it was the Palace of the Avignon Popes, and a couple of anti-popes as well during the time of the Schism. The walls are said to be up to 18 feet thick.

We are looking forward to exploring the city properly tomorrow. It is nice to be somewhere less frenetic, and good to slow down.