Our week in Provence: 4/25/2015

4/25/2015:  Cooler, grey day.  Rain in the early AM.  The hotel has foundations that go back to maybe the 4th century.  It was remodeled in the 16th.  The narrow streets of Arles – the houses & the shutters—look kind of Utrillo (I had to ask S who was the artist who did cityscapes).  

I just looked Utrillo up on Wikipedia; mother was Suzane Valadon– I hadn’t known that his mother was 18 when he was born, a model who slept with Degas & Renoir and eventually became an artist in her own right.

S commented that Utrillo pictures had wider streets.  I guess he’s right.

When we have the hotel room windows open, there’s a funny sound that must be the doves cooing.  We walked to the Antiquities museum this AM.  V. well done – nice bust of Caesar & a boat from Roman times recovered from the Rhone.  Also amphorae that the ancient purveyors labelled as preserved mackeral (2 years old) and tuna (aged 4 years).  Can you imagine??

V nice early Christian sarcophagi – I took a lot of pictures.  Seeing them alongside (so to speak) the Portail of St. Trophime makes me realize how Roman Romanesque carving is (well, duh, I guess, hence the name).  S, of course, took 2x as long as me to go through the exhibits.

Had a nice lunch at a cafe by the Espace Van Gogh (once a hospital where Van Gogh stayed), where I bought a couple of picture postcards and a magnet (not that any of the 200 paintings VG did in Arles are on exhibit here).  Went to Musee Reattu, in a house once owned by the knights of Malta.  Not that great a collection, but did include some nice Picasso sketches / ink drawings.

Reattu was the illegitimate son of Chateaufort and Catherine Raspal (sister of the painter Respal).  I liked the Raspal pictures best – they seemed naive and happy.

Then we came back to the room and I glommed onto S’s shoulder and fell fast asleep.  And now I’m having my obligatory wine in the courtyard and writing this.  What a lovely life.  Of course, tomorrow we head back.

Nimes has better Roman ruins than Arles.  Originally, we planned to go today, but I wanted to go to the Antiquities Mus, and we didn’t get to the Reattu yesterday.  So we’ll see Nimes in the ½ day before driving back to Avignon, returning the car, and taking the TGV back to Paris.   Had to happen sometime.