Day 32: Cavaillon to Arles

April 27, 2018

We were hoping to have good cycling over to Arles, though we only had maps and tracks that we had concocted at home. Our online sources, which are not only Google maps but also really cycle specific route finders like geovelo.fr and bikemap.net seemed to think D99 would be fine.

For a short time we too thought it looked good. But that was only a short time. Soon we encountered this:

So we hung a right on D31 and headed for Molleges. From there, we noodled our way in to St. Remy, which is almost the half way point to Arles.

St. Remy was not just a waypoint. It gave us some of the most memorable moments of the trip. To start, St. Remy retains a fair bit of its earlier Roman heritage, when it was called Glanum. Glanum was on the Via Domitia, the Roman road from the Alps to the Pyrenees. There is a major archeological site in St Remy, revealing baths, fountains, columns, and suchlike from the former Glanum. Two famous artifacts can be seen near the road - a triumphal arch and a mausoleum tower, which is actually thought to be the tomb of a family of five.

The mausoleum and the arch. These are in their original locations. They are about 2000 years old. Yikes.

You can do a big tour of the Glanum site, but there was something in St Remy that attracted us even more. Vincent Van Gogh, after spending about a year in Arles, having come from Paris, checked himself in to the St. Paul de Mausole asylum in St. Remy. This is just down the street from Glanum.

The asylum is still in operation, but it has also become a Van Gogh "pilgrimage" site. They have lined stone walls with reproductions of his paintings, and they have preserved his rooms pretty much as they were. Since his mental illness was so critical in his life and work, this asylum qualifies in our mind as as significant to appreciating Van Gogh as a visit to Monet's home in Giverny would be for the older impressionist.

The asylum, moreover, is a beautiful place - one where it feels you actually could find "asylum". I was especially impressed with the cloister (it seems this was a former convent). Unlike many today, the garden is still maintained, and it was lovely.

Van Gogh wrote many letters, mainly to his brother, about what he was thinking and how the painting was going. He talked about and painted what he saw from his asylum window, and it was an experience to look out that same window, though he mentioned fields, that now seem to be gardens.

The gift shop was a challenge, because we have just mailed back a bunch of stuff, at great expense. A number of books were in our hands, but got reluctantly replaced. We did come away with a little bit though, no doubt attributable to the fact that today is my birthday!

Here is a visit to St. Paul asylum:

The chapel and part of the buildings, with a statue of Van Gogh

Here is Van Gogh's take on standing in front of the buildings

Van Gogh's version. The relation of the bed to the window is the same, and the window frame is the same as what is there now, but the bed is different.

When we think of Van Gogh, we think mostly of Starry Night, and of irises. Van Gogh stated painting irises soon after arriving at St. Paul. I guess his most famous is Les Iris. Here is my poor snapshot of that, just to jog the memory:

Van Gogh's Les Iris has a place of honour in reproduction at St Paul

The Starry Night is perhaps Van Gogh's best known work (at least to us). He wrote to his brother that the view from his window at St. Paul was the inspiration for it. It is currently in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but this is what it looks like at St. Paul :

Sorry Vincent, I slightly cropped the close-up!

We also can not think of The Starry Night without thinking of Don Mclean's song. Listen to it now...

St Remy has created a trail of Van Gogh placards out from the town to St Paul. We followed these back now, and into one of the most attractive old towns we have found. All the standard elements were there - narrow streets, bakeries and cafes, shops, no cars. But here the shops and bakeries seemed to be just a step up in quality, without being snooty, and the squares and cafes just so pleasant. We spend a long time (partially because we could not find our way out for a bit.)

We chose a bakery from among many, and Dodie suggested I go in and choose anything at all. That's because of the special day. Normally if sent in alone I come out with stuff that is too much or too gooey, or both. This bakery had something I had not seen before, that they called "croustinette". They had this pistachio, cranberry, and other varieties. I was very happy with this choice. We ate this and the rest of our lunch in a little square, interesting and with good benches. There was also a stone wall concealing a great washroom nook!

Panorama of the little square, Place Tourtet..

So there you have the description of a really good day. Only thing, we were not in Arles yet. No problem, TI gave us a map that showed a veloroute ae way in. It actually seemed to correspond to our GPS route as well, so good. But we cast around and cast around trying to find it without much success. We were on it for a bit, and even saw some EV 8 signs, but in St Etienne du Gres the signs led to a locked gate, and after that -- nothing. The GPS sent us out by a canal, and then the route directed us onto grass beside the water that was not even a track. We followed a dirt road for a km or two, until that ended in a dead end. We pushed our bikes through unrideable gravel for a km or two, until we were able to fight our way back onto the big road. At that point we just went for it, on the dotted line.

After whirling though the last rond point (i.e. roundabout - known to us a "meat grinders") we were spat through the northern gate of Arles and bing! - heaven. Our hotel is actually just inside the gate. I can see the good modern use of the walls and gates - they help keep those blankey blank cars out!

It has taken the last three hours to fully recover from our ride outside the Arles walls, but now we feel fine. For tomorrow we are looking forward to the market, and then to launching the next stage of the trip - into the Camargue.

We talked about how deep into the Camargue to go in one day. Could we both go to Salin de Giraud and also make it to Saintes Maries de la Mer on a tiny path by the sea? The conservative weakling in the team said no. The adventurous one said yes. How bad could it be on a likely mountain bike track through the sands, she said. So tomorrow we'll see how it goes. I am secretly looking forward to it!

From our window - those walls are still useful! (See also those stanchions in shadow, that fend off cars that leaked through the wall.)

BONUS: Little Joe

The other day we came to a sign that made us think of the three littles in Montreal. It seems clear to us which kid is which - and clearly Joe, the youngest, is in blue.

Joe was the subject when his Mom, Sabrina, wrote to us yesterday. She attached this photo:

On a lonely, wet, big street is a standard Miller situation.

And she included these words, good ones to end today's entry:

"Joe is certainly made of Miller stuff, as he insists on riding his bike every day to school now, even in the rain. Notice how he is wearing his pants with bikes on them from you guys, and boots and rain jacket hand-me-downs from Avi. His new green helmet fits underneath the hood of his new raincoat which makes him oh so happy!And I am not allowed to help him up hills, he would rather grunt and peddle and when it gets too tough he pushes the bike up the hill rather than let me help at all. There is a lot of Dodie in this kid. 😁"

Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 2,034 km (1,263 miles)

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Scott AndersonDefinitely take the tiny path by the sea. We rode in from Saintes Marie’s to the Gacholle Lighthouse on our tour last fall (https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/sete2017/at-aigues-mortes-the-camargue/). It’s a great ride, and the path is fine for bikes except for a few sandy spots. On the next day, be sure to stop in at the ornithological Park - it was a real highlight of the tour.

Will you be stopping at Aigues-Mortes too?
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5 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesThanks for the info, one of us was getting anxious about it. Yes, the ornithological park is on the to see list. The Camargue is a really special place and we are really looking forwad to our trip through it.
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5 years ago

Marvin PaxmanWe just love the picture and note from Sabrina! If you read this, Sabrina, hugs and kisses to you and the kids :)
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5 years ago