Provencal birthday weekend

Mathilde’s birthday was coming up, so I decided to take her on a surprise trip to Provence for the weekend. I chose a cosy farmhouse hotel, located in the idyllic countryside near Arles. To make the most of our weekend, I left the office 4 o’clock on the dot, picked up Mathilde, and headed straight down the A8 for Arles. Traffic wasn’t too bad, so we arrived well in time for dinner – always important ;-)

Before dinner, we had a nice walk around the country lanes surrounding the hotel, to work up our appetite. Since the outdoors restaurant in the hotel garden looked very inviting, we decided to dine there - it turned out to be the right decision. Good food, nice wine, the gentle warmth of a summer evening, and the best possible company in the world. What else could one ask for?

After a very good night’s sleep, and a nice breakfast at the hotel, we headed out to explore Provence. Our first stop of the day was Fontvieille. After a quick walk around the typically pretty Provencal town, we made our way out of town to check out the main local attraction – a windmill. And not just any old windmill – this one was made famous as the setting of “Letters from my windmill” by Alphonse Daudet; one of the most famous authors from Provence (I’m sure you’ve heard of him, dear reader - even if I obviously had not). Well, the windmill wasn’t all that impressing, really (I mean, how impressive can a windmill get?), but we did like the pretty landscapes around it. Unfortunately hiking was not allowed due to danger of forest fire, as a nice lady explained to us (it was a "code black" day).

From Fontvieille, we carried on to Les Baux-de-Provence; surely one of the most famous villages in Provence. This ancient village (the citadel which overlooks the village was built in the 10th century) is dramatically located on top of a spur of the Alpilles hills, with splendid views towards the Camargue. It attracts about 2 million visitors per year, and it does show – meaning the place could be characterised as touristy (although it didn't feel as touristy as for example Carcassone, which we visited a few weeks ago). It’s certainly a pretty place, with its pedestrian, cobble-stone streets and pretty town houses. Having explored the village for a while, we visited the ruined citadel, which looms above the village. There wasn’t much left of the castle, so a fair bit of imagination was required - which is actually just the kind of place I like to visit. In its time it must’ve been an impressive structure, build directly into the cliff. And not easy to conquer, I’ll wager… And the views across the surrounding countryside were most impressive.

From Baux we pressed onwards to another Provence landmark town; St-Remy-de-Provence. St-Remy had quite a few famous inhabitants over the centuries. Van Gogh painted quite a few of his works here (this is also where he recuperated after “the ear incident”). We also walked past Hotel de Sade (yes, that would be the home of the famous marquis…) and also the birthplace of that notorious astrologer-physician; Nostradamus. Not too bad for a town of 10,000 people. The town itself was pleasant enough; with all the ingredients of a typical Provcencal town: small squares, narrow lanes, churches and fountains.

After a brief detour in Tarascon (we briefly stopped to admire the castle for which the town is famous; the Good King Rene held court during the 15th century), we arrived at the main destination of the day, Arles. Arles (which apparently is the largest township in France, area-wise) is of course mostly famous for its treasures from the Roman era – its arena and the theatre. Since it was getting a bit late, we decided to start by visiting the arena. It was certainly impressive – and the fact that it still stands today is obviously a testament to Roman engineering ability. In spite of the fact that nothing sets this particular Roman arena apart from the others we've seen over the last couple of years, it's still well worth a visit (the fact that it's right in the centre of town is also kind of nice).

We then headed down to the ancient theatre, located just a stone’s throw away. There were very few people there, so we took the oppportunity to have a bit of a rest (the southern heat was really starting to get to us - thankfully, the fresh and strong mistral wind provided some much needed refreshment and relief), whilst admiring the impressive Roman craftmanship. We then had a walk about the old town, trying to find a suitable restaurant. The walk was pleasant - touristy though it may be, Arles is big enough to have a real-life feel to it. After an aperitif at the lively main square in town, we ended up in a small restaurant a bit outside the town centre, where we had very enjoyable birthday dinner in Mathilde’s honour. A perfect ending for a perfect day.

After another leisurely breakfast at the hotel, we jumped in the car and continued our exploration. Our first stop of the day was Beaucaire – which is actually located on the other side of the Rhone river from Tarascon, where we stopped the day before. Beaucaire also has an impressive castle – which we spent about an hour trying to find. Once we found it, turns out the damn place is closed (and from where we were coming, we couldn’t really even see the castle properly. Oh well… We did find the local dragon statue though; impressive beast (but no match for me, as you can see in the photo ;-).

Our next stop was the Pont du Gard – another famous monument to Provence’s Roman past. And what an impressive monument it is – and what an incredible feat of engineering. The Pont du Gard is a combined aqueduct and bridge, spanning the river Gard, built between 40 and 70 AD. The structure was built to carry 20 millions litres of water DAILY. Wow, that’s impressive. Would’ve been a nice site for a picnic, too; sitting by the river, with the ancient structure looming over us. Oh well, next time, I suppose ;-). Having spent a good hour gaping at and photographing the thing from all possible angles (from underneath, behind, in front of, above etc.) we decided it was time to carry on…

So we then drove down to Nimes, another town with a Roman past. In fact, it was important enough during Roman times to earn the nick-name “the French Rome”. We started our visit by checking out La Maison Carree – which is (according to my guide book) the most well-preserved temple of the Roman world. Hmm, these days it houses a 3-D movie theatre (we saw a 20-minute film which traced the history of Nimes through the eyes of warriors from various eras). From there we hiked up through some very nice gardens (where we briefly visited the ruined Roman temple of Diana) to Tour Magne; an old tower from the Roman era, overlooking Nimes. At the top, we were greeted to some impressive views over the town.

The next stop was the tourist highlight of Nimes – the amphitheatre. The arena of Nimes is actually smaller than the one in Arles, yet I prefer this one. First of all, they audio guide tour is pretty interesting – providing a good mixture of anecdotes and facts. Although Mathilde had already educated me a bit about some of the vocab – for example amphitheatre actually means “two theatres” (a roman theatre is shaped as a half-circle), and arena means “sand”. The other reason is that the Nimes arena is actually still being used for bull-fighting. So it somehow gives the place a more real feel to it – it’s not just another tourist attraction, so to speak. OK, so I guess one could argue that bullfighting is not very moral (especially since Nimes is the only place in France where they actually kill the bulls after the "spectacle", like in Spain) – I won’t even go there… Anyway, it was a most interesting place to visit.

And then it was time for us to head back home, so off we went. We did have time to stop in Juan-les-Pins – we figured it would be a good place to check out Le Fete de la Musique (Juan-les-Pins hosts one of the most important jazz festivals in the south of France, and is also supposed to be a pretty happening place during the summer months). Alas, what a disappointment – we only found one band playing in the streets. So we ended up just having a pizza and then going home. Juan-les-Pins itself was nice in the sense that it's a bit different from the other coastal towns on the Cote d'Azur (it has a real beach resort feel to it).

All in all, we had a fantastic weekend. Great food, great wine, great weather (warm, but cooled down by that famous Mistral wind), beautiful landscapes, pretty towns – and the best girlfriend in the world ;-)