Château des Baux was a monument to carving a fortress out of granite. Down the steps past the village and up the road was the former granite quarry. Now it is an immense cavern with a sandy floor and large stone columns dedicated to themed light shows. As we entered, the underground cathedral of light was immersively…
Category: Découvrir la France
Le Vintage
Post by Ella Avignon. An intimate French restaurant. Took awhile to find. Many fine dining establishments were closed for Armistice Day (Monday, Nov 11). Finally came upon Le Vintage while googling “restaurants near me” in an ever widening circle around our apartment. It was 5:00pm and we were hungry having been chugging along on only…
Château des Baux
Today (Armistice Day in France, Veterans Day in US) was meant to be a get down medieval day. Only to get down in the medieval way we had to climb up the some steep stony steps. These led to the large granite ruins of Chateau des Baux looming over the farmland in the valley below. The…
Forward ho
Post by Ella On to Avignon with a delightful stop in Les Baux-de-Provence to climb around the Chateau and then an immersive experience in an old cavernous granite quarry. The drive was lovely. It felt like Van Gogh’s world. How much more spectacular it would have been without asphalt roads and cars. And if only…
Arles photos
Random pictures from Arles
You can park, but you can’t leave
Post by Ella Staying in a pedestrian only area in Arles and having a rental car meant finding a place to park added to travel challenge. Our AirBnB host gave us the location of a parking garage that was “secure and monitored “ 24/7. A 15 minute walk to the apartment. Okay, that works. We…
Our Arles place
Post by Ella ❤️La Nuit Arlésienne❤️ (The Arles Night) is the name of our apartment. I guess the hearts were meant to catch your eye so you’d stop scrolling the listings on AirBnB. “Oh, this one must be great, look at those hearts”. Honestly, emojis as part of a name confounds my brain. I guess…
Anubis
I’ve come face-to-face with this Egyptian god of the underworld and protector of graves. He has the body of a man with a canine head, so even from a distance he’s hard to miss. I first ran into him while moiling through the Louvre. I was trying to skirt the crowd and there he was right in…
The stately bird
How can one not love a penguin or a flamingo? The penguin for waddling in a tux, the flamingo for its stately pose in pink finery. It’s only fitting that we made our journey to the gathering of the flamingos in France. Their upright stillness, the long graceful loop of their necks as they dip their beaks in…
Good place to crown a king
The Saint-Trophime Catholic Church holds a prominent corner of the large square in the center of Arles that once was the Roman forum. It was first constructed in the 12th century. It was built in the Romanesque tradition as you can tell from the pillars fronting the entrance. When it comes to medieval churches, I prefer Gothic…
Dining next to Van Gogh
Post by Ella Yesterday, Grubb wanted to soak up the Van Gogh vibe (along with a lot of rain) so after he snapped a dozen or so photos of the closed Le Cafe Van Gogh, we sat down for lunch under an awning at L’Apostrophe right next door. We both opted for burgers. I went…
Flamingos
Post by Ella The Carmague, a regional park south of Arles is known for its abundance of birds and other wildlife including flamingos and white horses. In Arles, the Rhône splits in two and between the two branches, in the area close to the sea, there are abundant salt marshes. At the Ornithological Park within…
Non, non, not that table!
This shot of colorful boat-shaped tables outside a seaside cafe in Menton had me recall tables we had come across near an outdoor museum kiosk a few days earlier. The museum kiosk had, unbeknownst to me, a hierarchy of tables. I thought we could sit down and have a cup of coffee, but was quickly informed…
The cryptoporticus of Arles
I forgot to mention that in the midst of our Arles rain walk we took a brief tour of the cryptoporticus, a “semi-subterranean gallery whose vaulting supports portico structures aboveground” such as the forum which served as the Roman marketplace of the city. No one is quite sure went on down there during Roman rule,…
Rain break
Post by Ella Musée Réattu, housed in a 15th century building, was delightful. We might have skipped it but for the steady rain. This was the first break in our perfect weather streak so not complaining. In fact, torrential downpours and thunderstorms had been forecast but the waterworks never got more intense than a steady…