Following our stay in Avignon we moved on to Arles by bus on 7th June. There is a train service between Avignon and Arles but the only service we could find goes via Marseilles, a very long detour!
We stayed in Arles for 3 nights in a city centre rental apartment. The apartment was small and not one of the best we have used but it was fine for a short stay.
Arles is another city sitting on the River Rhone in the Provence Region. It’s adjacent to and includes a big part of the Carmargue Delta. The city has a lot of history (see wiki) as it was once a provincial capital of ancient Rome and so there are some Roman monuments including an arena and a theatre to be seen.
One of the city’s claims to fame, like other cities in the region, is that Vincent Van Gogh lived here for a year and unsurprisingly there is a museum here in his memory. During his time here he painted over 300 paintings and cut off his ear! After Arles, VG moved on to Saint-Remy-de-Provence.
This is a fairly quiet small town but very very nice. You can walk from one end to the other in 20 minutes or so and the few highlights can easily be seen in a day but there are plenty of lovely streets and squares to explore and lots of nice bars, restaurants and shops to make a stay of two or three nights or more worthwhile and especially so if you wanted to use this as a base to see other nearby towns such as St Remy and les Baux or Cassis or Marseille in the south.
Here are the photos starting with the main square Place de la Republic
