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Van Gogh-where?(1)

Van Gogh-where?(2

Visiting Arles

Museums-Alyscamps

restaurant recommendations

The French writer Frederic Mistral used the money he earned by winning the Literature Nobel Prize (1904) to realize a dream he had since a long time. The creation in Arles of a Provencal ethnographic museum. The MUSEE ARLATEN was founded in the early 16th century Hotel de Laval-Castellane, with a baroque facade middle 17th century on the place de la Republique. It is an amusing museum. We can be stunned, bored, interested or find it funny. The first floor is still exactly as Mistral had arranged it, with the small explaining notes describing pants and shirts, furniture and table utensils, and all the folkloric objects he had collected. The halls are guarded by young girls in traditional costumes. Second floor was arranged in 1940 by the archeologue Fernand Benoit and we can find some more useful info on Arles.
We loiter again the narrow streets of Arles, direction Rhone and hope we will get to the Thermae of Constantin". The ones of you who are not fanatics of old Roman ruins, keep your money and don't visit these thermal ruins. Just a little bit further we see the much more attractive 

MUSEE REATTU, named after a painter, Jacques Reattu (1760-1833). His numerous works are displayed in three rooms which is much! ;-) Luckily the present director transformed the rest of the museum into a museum of contemporary art. Great names as Dufy, Leger, Vlaminck, Marquet and sculptors like Cesar and Ossip Zadkine are on display. The highlight of the museum is the series of 57 drawings, Picasso realized in January 1971 and who gave it, in a very seldom open-handed mood, as a present to the city. Other works of Picasso include a portrait of his mother that was offered in 1971 to the museum by Picasso's daughter, Jacqueline.
Let's return to the car on the place Lamartine and let's now drive to LES ALYSCAMPS. 

The name of "Les Alyscamps" so well painted by Van Gogh, comes from "Elysii Campi" (Champs Elysees). The alley is lined with tombs along cypresses, leading to the Saint-Honorat church. The once so famous Alyscamps turned today into a sad alley,  which was was an immense graveyard where everybody wanted to be buried. Zillions of graves lined the main alley. Most of the sarcophagus were used later as building material in churches and musea. Today, after a railway was build through a part of the Alyscamps,  the immediate surroundings are tarnished by ugly buildings and factories. Along the only remaining lane, lined with high  poplars, there are some uninteresting, empty graves. So the "poesie" that this place is supposed to give us, has to come from ourselves. Vincent Van Gogh visited the Alyscamps at the right moment, fall of 1888 when the surrounding ugliness was tempered by fog. But the atmosphere was still there and he painted the famous "Allee de peupliers aux Alyscamps", of which four versions are known. One of them is in the Kroller-Muller museum in Otterloo. It's a poetic one, because Van Gogh didn't paint the ugly factory with its high chimneys. On other versions he painted them (private collection, Lausanne)
Now, before leaving Arles and before crossing the Pont Nouveau, make a left and pay a visit to the Faubourg du Cirque and it's new MUSEE DE L'ARLES ANTIQUE, the provincial luxury-ideal of the Peruvian-French architect Henri Ciriani. After the first years the novelty was worn out. In the summer, this not much visited museum is surrounded by wild campings ( unlawful). The blue plaques glued to the large facade are loosening. Everything which could have a view on the river is hidden behind walls and screens. The windows are too high or too low. The personnel works in small cages, the room of the director has a balcony that seems build for the sultan of Brunei. But despite all this misery, the museum is a must. You will discover works of the antique Arles, an archeological research institute and a culture wing with an  auditorium, lecture halls, libraries and archives. There are outstanding reduced models  (maquetttes) on display and finally we will discover a complete panorama of prehistory until the end of the Roman Empire. The itinerary is superbly well presented .We are in the  daily life of our ancestors or invaders !! 
In front of the museum, excavations of the circus, built in the same period as the arena. I don't think they will ever be able to finish it  because there is a modern road just on top of it and no alternative road has been found yet.
A hint: the most beautiful view on Arles is from the Pont Nouveau, but if you dare to stop or get out of your car here, it's at your own life risk!