Day 60: Arles to St. Remy de Provence

April 18, 2025

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Arles was our jumping off point for a swing around eastern Provence. Our first step was a small one, to St. Remy de Provence. We wanted to be in St.Remy because more than Arles it was the place that Van Gogh spent his time in this region. Our route began with going up the Rhone just a bit, before striking off east. The part along the Rhone was no doubt on the Via Rhona and EV 8, which is always special. But I was thinking more of Van Gogh, and how I could create an iconic Rhone image, like him. How about "Cruise Ships on the Rhone"? Certainly I had noticed the cruise ships yesterday, parked in front of the Van Gogh view for "Starry Night Over the Rhone".

When I took my cruise ships shot, it turned out I had inadvertently spun the "mode" wheel on the camera, landing it on one of those stupid settings, like "Toy Camera" that they put in just because they can. So my cruise ships look weird - maybe like a painting!

Up river from the cruise ships, a fun fair was being set up. My camera still with the twisted dial, saw this as a painting too.

Finally we came to a fun fair pirate ship ride, or something. Here at last the camera was in tune with the scene, because it made the cartoon characters look cartoonish. That however was where my dive into photo special effects arts ended, because I noticed the wrong setting.

Oh wait, I did get some other cartoon characters - Bus Tourists on the Rhone

We left the Rhone and immediately were on either actual bike path or anyway very small and quiet roads. This was a really nice way to go, working with the day being sunny, if cool.

A special treat came when we ran into a man selling oranges, mandarins, and grapefruit by the roadside. They were from Spain. It felt weird to have to be buying imports from Spain, since we had gotten so used to being actually in Spain. But the mandarins were super good.

Unlike Mallorca, we did not have lots of fields here of very colourful wild flowers, but there were some, like these poppies:

Of course we were not the first to notice this. Here is Van Gogh's 1890 "Poppy Field":

Something we got that would not have been possible for Van Gogh was a rail trail. In his time, of course, the trains were still running. But we remember the one we stumbled on, from last time, because of the rather strange locomotive representations in concrete, that guard each intersection.

Strange rail trail "statues". (Notice in this photo the strange sky tones - the camera is still acting up...)

The rail trail theme is continued with this innovative bench.

Also of interest along the way was a very nice looking farm house, and some beautiful fields of lettuce.

It didn't take long to reach "civilization" in the form of the outskirts of St Remy. One of the first things we encountered was a branch of Marie Blachère bakery. This, like Paul, is a super high quality chain.

Marie Blachère is always in a stand alone building on the outskirts of town, and the building design is always the same.

Marie Blachère really tickled my fancy. It's not every day that you find a product that is of such quality that it can not be improved. It's perfect, and that's just it! So it was with the two tartelettes that Dodie came out with. And where did they get those peaches and raspberries in April?

I went in to the shop for my own look and wow, they had lots more! There is a bakery chain in Canada called Cobbs, that looks great but has no quality. Not here - this looks great and is great! We are planning to cycle back out to them tomorrow, just because!

Something a little strange about St. Remy, that we noticed last time as well, is that it has an inordinate amount of traffic for its size, filling its streets with a continuous stream of cars, all the time. As we got close to the centre of town, the clogged up cars were not moving, or just moving a little. We fell into line with them, taking the lane and edging forward with everyone else. But a driver behind us seemed to take exception to that, and he put pressure on us by following too closely. Finally when he saw his chance, he pulled out and cut us off, but necessarily taking a place just ahead of us in the line up. In due course we passed him on the right and cut him off. You don't have to be French to be a grumpy driver!

Whatever the density or speed of traffic, we soon arrived at the centre of town. Some could mark that by the obelisk in the rond-point, but I mark it by the Paul bakery, in what looks like a former bank building.

When we came to St Remy before (2018) I was very put off by the heavy traffic on this street in from of Paul (Boulevard Victor Hugo) and the streets leading to and from it on the east. It took us a while to discover then that Victor Hugo is just part of a ring road system, and inside the ring lies a fetching low traffic or pedestrian old town. In fact the guide books claim that St Remy is one of the oldest towns in France. It started with the Greeks or Phoenicians in the 6th century BC, and then became the Roman city Glanum. Glanum was destroyed in 270 A.D. by the first waves of Germanic invasion. I am not sure what happened in the next 700 years, but the founding date for the monastery where Van Gogh stayed is given as 1082.

So when we hung a left at Paul Bakery, we were entering a suitably old, old town. Of course as good tourists, the first thing we looked for was a postcard/souvenir shop. Easy to find!

The post cards were a mix of Van Gogh reproductions and Provence, mostly lavender, scenes.

Van Gogh and lavender are the names of the game.

Turning off the high traffic ring road leads to this:

As birders we rather liked this souvenir shop offering. Whoever painted these was fairly serious as for example we see a Eurasian Nuthatch and a European Goldfinch in the flock.

Quite aside from Van Gogh, we look to Peter Mayle for inspiration about Provence. Mayle was the author of A Year in Provence and many other titles about this area. One of the many subjects he touched on was truffle, which is a thing here, expensive and hard to find, and much loved by gourmets. So it was normal to find truffle shops in the old town. Their strategy is to offer samples at the door. We tried that once and found that we hated it. So when time Dodie encountered the first sample man, she told him her opinion. He took it well, sort of. Look at the photo:

Any imperfections in this man's complexion are coming from the acting up Lumix camera!

We carried on though the streets, and as in Arles, felt that every street scene was attractive. The Lumix is playing silly buggers with the shots, though.

Hey, wait a minute. I just got an idea. To combat poor internet I have been using a program called Photoworks to cut down the file sizes. This has worked fine for many past days. But look, here below is a not processed by Photoworks street scene, followed by the Photoworks version. We blamed Lumix too soon!

And oh, I also blamed Photoworks too soon. The other day, internet was so terribly bad that I had asked Photoworks to go crazy and really cut down the file sizes. I forgot to tell Photoworks to ease up, now that we are at a slightly better hotel.

Things will look better from here to the end of the post!

Not many vehicles venture into these narrow streets. From our experience with the Peugeot, we have sympathy for those that do. Here is one that was trying to turn the back end of the vehicle to the right of the photo, whikle of course the wall was looking to rip off his sliding door. I took a risk to get this shot, because the driver had no way to see me lurking back there. He did make it, just.

One famous St Remy resident who was not Van Gogh was Nostradamus. "Michel de Nostredame, usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed seer, who is best known for his book Les Prophéties, a collection of 942 poetic quatrains allegedly predicting future events." There is a bust of Nostradamus on a street corner in old St Remy:

The fountain is from 1814 and the bust is from 1859.

People were sitting out at many restaurants, enjoying the sunshine. The one shown below was just outside city hall.

This is what they had to choose from:

The lamb in the second to last item looks good. "Pignons" are pine nuts.

We Walk the Van Gogh Route:

"Vincent van Gogh arrived in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence on 8 May 1889 after suffering a major mental crisis in which he cut off his earlobe. Arriving from Arles, he voluntarily committed himself to Saint-Paul de Mausole psychiatric hospital. Vincent van Gogh stayed there for a whole year, until May 1890.

It was in his small hospital room that he experienced his most productive period; a major period in his life as an artist, during which he produced almost 150 paintings and numerous drawings, including ‘The Starry Night’, ‘The Almond Tree Branch in Bloom’ and ‘The Iris’."

Based on this history, the tourism people in St Remy created a Van Gogh route in the town, extending from city hall to the TI office and on to the St Paul Monastery. At points along this route are placed easels with reproductions of Van Gogh works, together with quotes from letters he wrote to his brother, mother, and others, describing his mental state and some thoughts about the subjects of the paintings. These easels are often placed where you can see what Van Gogh was looking at for the painting, or at least something similar. We set about following the route and looking at each of the 19 installations - except that we could not find the first one, hidden somewhere behind City Hall. Our walk ended at the St Paul monastery/hospital which is still in operation, but which also has a major collection of outdoor Van Gogh reproductions, but the chance to see inside his ward and also his rooms. This latter was really special, because you could look out exactly his window, and see pretty much what he saw, and painted.

Depending on your computer, you may be able to read the Van Gogh comments at the bottom of the panel. They are all very frank, talking about his illness, or sometimes the difficulty of capturing the subject material. Here is a close-up of the comment above:

We dropped our bikes at the hotel, which is called ... Hotel Van Gogh, of course, picked up the Nikon camera, and walked back to start the Van Gogh route.

The roundabout at the entrance to the old town.

Inside a bookshop - a selection of Van Gogh topics.

At Tourist Information, the 4th easel. They reserved probably the most famous work for outside their office.

These are not parked cars, exactly. They are cars trying to pass though a crowded street of St Remy.

There are lots of Iris in Provence. These are more or less wild on the street to Van Gogh's hospital.

The olive picker ladies, with olive trees behind the easel.

The Alpilles, little Alps, are visible from Van Gogh's street.

Here is Van Gogh's take on essentially the same thing:

The famous self portrait, in a nook near the entrance.

This statue, which is in a prominent place on the path to the hospital, is incredibly evocative.

Since 1855, St Paul's monastery has been a place for mentally ill people. It's initial capacity was 50 men and 50 women. Van Gogh checked himself in after his ear cutting incident in Arles. The hospital had ward beds for the poor, but Van Gogh's brother financed three rooms for him - his bedroom, a painting room, and a storage room.

The mountains are nowhere near as close as the poster shows.

In the pharmacy - not much Prozac on offer!

Sister Epiphane was the Mother Superior.

Sister Epiphane's bedroom. Although the grounds and architecture of this place seem wonderful, the interiors are super depressing.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer lived here with his wife. German born ( I think) Schweitzer worked in Gabon. At the end of WWI he was a prisoner of war of the French, and got stashed at St Pauls. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.

He was a polymath, philosopher, doctor, and organist.

The "bathroom". Van Gogh wrote that he founds baths beneficial. In his time these would have been warm baths. A century earlier they believed that cold water shock could drive away deranged ideas.

What I saw from his window. He wrote about looking out through the bars.

In Van Gogh's painting room. The wooden shoes at the bottom look uncomfortable.

More views from Van Gogh's windows. He painted scenes from his windows repeatedly.

A copy of Starry Night near Van Gogh's room.

The hospital gift shop. I got what will be a much treasured keychain - Starry Night on one side, Iris on the other!

The Iris garden, with reproductions along the side.

Part of of the monastery, near the gardens.

Examples of Provence Cypresses, near St Paul's

Van Gogh's comments about them:

The Cypresses, field of wheat, and Alpilles, that Van Gogh saw near here:

Don McLean's "Vincent" is a most evocative song about Van Gogh. The version below not only gives you the words, but also a slide show of the most famous paintings:

(p.s. Now at 10 p.m. on what had been a clear day, I went out to look for some stars to photograph. No luck, it's cloudy now. We'll have to rely on Vincent's image!)

Today's ride: 38 km (24 miles)
Total: 1,760 km (1,093 miles)

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Jonathan HechtLoved the McClean piece. Thank you.

Jonathan
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1 week ago

Mark BinghamWow... this post really brings back some memories of our visit there. You captured everything well.
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1 week ago

Kelly IniguezJacinto says there's a music group from Spain named La Oreja de Van Gogh. What an odd moniker to adopt!
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Jonathan HechtIt is one of our favourite paintings, and the song is so evocative. The combination is unbeatable.
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Mark BinghamThank you. We really are great fans of Van Gogh's work and visit St Remy any time we are in the vicinity.
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Kelly IniguezOdd, and a bit ghoulish, but somehow it sounds better in Spanish than in English.
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1 week ago

Janice BranhamLovely to see the route to St. Remy, the town, and all the Van Gogh images again. Thank you.
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Janice BranhamOne of our favourite places and one of our favourite artists. An unbeatable combination.
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1 week ago