7 - Walking the Van Gogh trail in Arles, France - Tour of Duty: An ...

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June 2003
It is 150 years this year (2003) since that tormented, frenetic, red-haired Dutchmen, who cut his ear off, Vincent Van Gogh, was born. We went to Arles in Southern France because Vincent spent 15 months there from February 1888 – and painted every day, during a period some say was his brightest and most fruitful. Some of his very best paintings came from this period.

Five years ago I was staying in Aix on Provence in the South of France and missed a bus to Arles that left from station 6 instead of 10. We swore to make Arles next time around and we did – after some frustration. This time the jinx persisted, with a rail strike to France from Spain and we by-passed Arles to Marseille by bus. We tried to coax the driver to drop us off in Arles as we sped over the River Rhone, but no such luck. A day later after surviving the stench of Marseille we arrived at Arles station. (I must explain that Marseille was in the middle of a two-week-old rubbish strike, and people had taken to lighting the rubbish so there we fires everywhere and sirens of fire-engines wailing, so the whole city looked like a war zone).

On blessed arrival in Arles, not that we knew it then, but we walked right past where Van Gogh's Yellow House used to be, before it was bombed in World War 2. We made our way through the town walls and humped our way up a small hill to the Roman Amphitheatre (Arena), built in the first century AD and which could seat 30,000 spectators. Today it is still the site of bull races. Our hotel was a delightful, converted teahouse full of charm. In fact the hotel is listed in the 50 most charming boutique hotels in France. The Le Calendal is located between the Arena and the Roman Teatro, and aerial views show the hotel wedged between the twin ancient monuments. For €72 a night this hotel was one of the finds of the whole tour, and we were grateful for the efficient air-conditioning given that it was about 90°F all our stay in Arles.

We were in Arles for the purpose of soaking up the Van Gogh experience and trying to locate the sites where he painted his now-famous colorful paintings of everyday life. However Arles is a total experience, a genuine atmospheric small French town with narrow streets in the old quarter and history to be sought out and discovered in every quarter.

Our first quest was pretty straight forward- we made our way to the Rhone River to find the actual spot that Vincent painted the Trinquetaille Bridge (now demolished, but the feeling is still there) and further along the Rhone in the evening we stood where he painted his leitmotif Starry Night. The next morning we traced our steps to where his yellow house once stood at 2 Place Lamartine in front of the Arles railway bridge, which is still there. On a very hot day we rested and searched for the hospital where Vincent was taken after he cut his ear off. We found our ways barred to the Sanitorium by a maze of streets and dead ends, but after persistent hunting we found the entrance at Espace Van Gogh. The sanitorium is now a hotel and the beautiful, relaxing garden is still laid out in the central courtyard just as he painted it in April 1989. I took several photos and my wife discovered the window to his room, though now it is off-limits for visits (It should not be as it should be open for all to visit, like Anne Frank's room- it is part of world heritage).

That late afternoon we headed out of town for a one-hour walk south across the Rhone to the site of the Langlois Bridge on an arm of the river, where Vincent painted it with a horse and buggy on the bridge and women washing in the water below. There it is in all its glory, unchanged virtually, the two arms of the drawbridge standing to attention in defiance of time itself. Across the canal were a group of Muslim boys in their cars, drinking beer so the mullahs couldn't find them. The police arrived on motorcycles and waited, looked across. We watchd this game of cat and mouse: one man broke from the pack and the police crossed Van Gogh's bridge in pursuit. The bridge still evokes high drama of another kind, it seems.

We left the long arm of the law to follow their own pursuits while we walked back along the canal, enjoying the more relaxed scenes of people fishing. As we strolld back we also passed many homes on barges and even a compound with a gypsy caravan. This is the domain of river people, gypsies on the waterways with their barges defended by dogs who look less than welcoming.

That balmy evening we sauntered down into the Place du Forum to stand before and sit at the tables of Café at Night, still there almost as Vincent painted it over three balmy days in September 1888. This place evokes a great sense of theatre and reflection, and most visitors part with their dollars to have at least one drink in the Van Gogh café. We were no different – cognacs – the hell with the price – salute Vincent! You weird lover of wheat-fields and peasant workers! Thank you for your art, your sensitivity – sorry for your pain!

The next day we take a tour into the Carmague to witness the working of the Guardians who tame and then ride the strong white horses of the marshes and then muster the even wilder, black cattle. We are informed that Spanish bulls have their horns at the front and lowered to be very dangerous, while the French bulls have the horns uplifted. In Arles and other places in the south of France there are bull races where 30 or more athletic fools run around the arenas with the bulls and try to take silver caps off their uplifted horns. This is 'not so risky?' we ask. Our guide then produces photos of men with horns through their arms and legs to make us forget our morning tea for a while. "Youch!!" A tour of the Camargue includes taking in the extensive rice fields, the canals and what turned out to be limited bird life that was a bit of a disappointment.

However, not to be put off we have one more place to go in our pilgrimage to Van Gogh. We catch a bus to Les Saintes-Maries de la Mer, where Van Gogh painted those colorful fishing boats and the little white houses and crooked lanes of the seaside town.

Les Saintes-Maries is 50 kilometers south and is at the mouth of the little Rhone tributary. There are extensive lagoons around the town and the actual Camargue sanctuary, which is off-limits, is to the east of the town. On the day we were there a sea mist was rolling in giving the town an air of portent of a summer storm. The sky was a dark grey as Vincent's, Sea View at Saintes- Maries ( June 1888). Would this be the day to break the 50 we had enjoyed without rain? Dark clouds threatened as I entered the tourist bureau. I asked about a bird sanctuary five miles back down the road where one might see flamingoes. "You can hire a bike or take a tourist bus in an hour," the attendant said. "But if you want to see flamingoes there are some on the lagoon behind the bus car park " I looked at him stunned. "They are not always there, but there were sightings of 10 birds this morning!" Off we shot to see this phenomenon of flamingoes that winter over from Lake Uganda in Southern Africa to the south of France.

We pushed between the huge tourist buses and there they were in front of us, not 10 but now 20 flamingoes, about 40 meters away, bobbing up and down, feeding in their strange way and filtering the mud back to front. And these birds were complete with orange under-flight feathers. We spent two hours walking along a canal with binoculars (Tasco) that we bought for €7 Italy. I noticed several birds clustering 150 meters off shore, then something amazing started to happen: a few birds flew in under our guard, almost skimming in, stretched out over six feet in length in flight. The birds arrived in front of us, until maybe a flock of 50 or 60 birds were feeding in front of us. From further out in the center of the lagoon, we could hear the noise of about 200 birds flocked together. A long white line marked their presence.

Then another miracle. We noticed neat round holes in the canal bank, and I off-handedly said to my wife, "Those holes look like ones I saw on the river Zambezi several years ago belonging to..." &151; "A bee-eater!" my wife said in an excited, almost breathless voice – "and another," until we were mesmerized by no less than seven of these beautiful flying jewels.

Each bird is the size of a small kingfisher, with a long curved black beak, a banded eye, azure blue head and front chest with lower waist of tan and white, olive green wings and tan back, creamy yellow along flight feathers and two long, black extended tail feathers. The birds shimmered in the sunlight – beautiful creatures that dance on the air like Van Goth's colorful paintings full of movement, of golden fields, green trees, blue skies. The association seemed aimless to anyone but us – yet somehow very apt. We almost forgot the flamingoes dancing and fighting before us, orange wings flapping and honking incessantly like geese.

We reluctantly left the lagoon, but not before we took photographs of traditional Guardian houses with their willow-based thatched roofs and the white walls and chimneys and plastered wind brace, complete with a sloped cross. These are what we liked to imagine as the visions of houses and lanes seen also by Van Gogh, still there today for those that seek them out along the canals near the lagoon.

In full sun we walked along the beach that Vincent walked and sketched his fishing boats, and we were content thereafter to wander into town and soak up the atmosphere along the sea wall, playing tourist in his colorful relaxing town and enjoy a lunch of spaghetti marinara on the terrace.

We lost a day in Arles due to the rail strike, but in four days we came face to face with places where Vincent Van Gogh stood, watched, painted and captured images, for us all, for all time. My wife toured the Van Gogh Foundation, because in Arles there are no original paintings held of the Dutch Impressionist artist. To overcome this deficiency, famous artists from around the world, artists as famous as Francis Bacon and David Hockney, have reflected on and been inspired by the work and style of Van Gogh, and then painted their individual responses to his work for the Foundation. Hockney was inspired by a visit to the Arles sanitorium and Vincent's room and painted a small simple rush chair like the one Van Gogh painted of his own chair in 1888. There are over 70 works in the gallery and well worth the visit, 50 meters from our hotel directly opposite the Roman arena.

We left Arles on an early morning train, and as we walked down the main street past the shops Vincent painted, we felt sad that our art pilgrimage was almost at an end. We are the richer for our travels though, and like Van Gogh's paintings our lives have been full of bright days, swirling images of new cultures and ways of the world that will be with us for many days to come. Beyond the photo memories we have enjoyed the very essence of living the life of modern-day vagabonds on their pilgrimage, and just enjoying the art of travel itself – the greatest art form of all!

Questions?
If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our Europe Insiders page.

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