“Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me”
— Al Stewart “Eyes of Nostradamus” from the album “Past, Present, and Future.”

Provence has lots of famous cities and resorts, from Sainte Tropez to Marseille and many more. But we tend to prefer places off the beaten path. Les Baux de Provence was on our list of must sees, but we were having trouble finding a place to stay. One possibility was the little town of Saint Remy de Provence, but then we noticed that the campground was about to close for the winter. We were off before it was too late!

Saint Remy is the birthplace of Michel de Nostredame, more commonly known as Nostradamus. An absolutely fascinating person: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus

It proved to be a wonderful visit and one of the highlights of the trip.  The campsite was close to the town and it was an easy bike ride to the tourist office – once we found it.

There were also Roman ruins – a whole town of them, but then Denise saw a poster. What on earth is a “course camarguaise?” We repaired to “Paul’s” for coffee, goodies, and research. The course camarguaise turns out to be the local form of non-fatal bull fighting. In fact, the bulls are all repeat performers and have star billing on the flyers. (The bull fighters, or, more appropriately, bull runners, are not mentioned.) This led to a test ride to find the arena and get ready for the last performance of the season, to be held the following afternoon. We were set!

The next morning we rode to Glanum, a small Roman town, founded by the Gauls and dedicated to the local god of plenty and pure water, Glan. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glanum)

Founded by the Gauls around 600 BC, Glanum became a Greek city before the Romans arrived. The city was abandoned in the third century AD due to attacks by Germanic tribes. Relocating to the larger and more defensible site of the modern Saint Remy, the people dismantled most of the Roman city to reuse the stones. Finally, a flood put it under eight metres of mud, with only the “antiquities” showing.

And there it remained until the 1920’s. Read more here: https://www.site-glanum.fr/en/discover/history-of-glanum Our visit complex, we headed back to “Paul’s” to warm up and then to wander and admire the typical Cathar curved streets and, finally, to enjoy a great pizza and Minestrone soup lunch!

That afternoon we joined the local population and we were off to the races. Or bull fights. Or whatever.

When we couldn’t find a bike parking rack, the ticket taker told us to just bring them inside where he could watch them. Settled in our seats, we discovered ourselves next to a locally resident American. (Small world – I think she was as surprised to see us as we were to meet her!) It was the final “performance” of the season, so we studied our program and guide. 

A total of six decorated, and named, bulls would spend 15 minutes each in the ring and the 10 raseteurs would attempt to pull their decorations off, leaping out of the ring as each bull approached.

To be honest a couple of the bulls had a rather “been there done that” attitude!  One or two clearly had a good sense of time, as at about the 13 or 14 minute mark, they simply quit being ferocious and trotted back to the gate to await the end of the round. It was the last course of the year after all! Animals are amazingly intelligent.

But it was a lot of fun and one bull especially enjoyed leaping over the barrier, four times. 

Our very first bull fight, or was it our second rodeo? https://diplostrat.net/2019/06/23/the-oregon-trail-revisited/) Who knows, but it was one that we could enjoy because the bulls returned happily to the pastures after their performances. They had top billing, after all.

We did make it back to Glanum the next day, which unfortunately meant we did not have a day to revisit Les Baux (our last visit was in 1974!).  But we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Glanum and were amazed by this little ancient town.

The site is small, but the excellent museum has many animated light shows and models to explain how the town evolved over the centuries. (https://www.site-glanum.fr/en) The small size makes it easier to get a full understanding of how the city worked.

The Gauls established the first settlement, up in the narrow valley and surrounded by walls. By the time the Greeks arrived, the great gate had become the ceremonial entry to the temple sector, with the sacred spring. The spring, of course, is one of the reasons for settling here. By the time the Romans arrived, the spring was purely religious and they fed the city with an aqueduct.

The Romans excelled at civil engineering and, if you had to choose only one thing to demonstrate their superior understanding and technology, it might be water. Clean potable water into towns via aqueducts – see the Pont du Gard. Water storage and distribution to public fountains and houses, and finally, water drainage from houses, baths, and latrines, via the various cloacae. While the Romans were better at this than anyone up to and probably including the 19th centur, think of the London cholera and typhoid outbreaks, they still suffered from plagues and disease as they did not fully understand public sanitation and the spread of illness and parasites. They didn’t always flush the bath water enough and sharing a toilet sponge is not a great idea. Still, compared to the dark and middle ages, they were amazing. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_in_ancient_Rome)

First Gaul, then Greek, then Gallo-Roman, and complete with housing, temples, sacred springs, and ramparts – Glanum is a fabulous visit.

Oh, and Al Stewart, the Scottish musician quoted above? We linked for the quixotic Nostradamus reference, but his whole album “Past, Present, and Future” is a good listen and amazingly good history – especially the song “Roads to Moscow.” Chilling. For a deep dive: https://glintoflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Al_Stewart-_-_-Road_To_Moscow.pdf (A tip of the hat to Denise’s brother, Trevor – ever the source of the best music.)

Or who knew that there were so many Roman ruins in this part of France?

Roman ruins are no strangers after our stay in Jordan but we still enjoyed every stone! It is easy to forget that Caesar’s Gallic wars ended before the birth of the Christ and that for centuries thereafter, Gaul, modern France, was close to the very center of the Roman world. Lots of Romans, especially combat veterans, settled there and lots of Gauls became Romans soldiers and they too Romanized. And the Romans knew how to build! Everything from roads, to drains, to waterworks, on up to massive theaters, arenas, and temples. Arguably, their greatest contribution to civilization was the recognition that if people were to be healthy in a city there were two great needs – clean water and effective sewers. The Romans built their cities around both. And some of those water systems, aqueducts, were simply amazing.

We started the tour with a visit to Pont du Gard, which was on Fred’s must see list.  We stayed at an aire on the south side of the river and bicycled into the site as the sun was shining and we were anxious to seize the moment.  We then proceeded to take a round about way due to muddled signage and were completely lost.  It turned out we had cycled to the viewing tower (Belvedere) and were quite a way from the Aqueduct, down a trail that was only marginally bicyclable. It was a lovely ride through the woods and an olive grove and we found a portion of the aqueduct leading to the Pont. Not the famous bridge, but impressive none the less.

We kept hunting! We turned around and found our way to the “real thing”.  And it was breathtaking.

It is really quite amazing and includes a much later 18th century footbridge, which we of course crossed. 

There were steps leading to the top from the northern bank of the river.  Denise declined due to her sore ankle but Fred climbed to the top and took photos. 

Evening was coming and it gets chilly fast, even in the south of France.  So we stopped for hot chocolate and then headed back to the aire. You can read more about the Pont here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_du_Gard (One of their better articles.)

Our next planned visit was to Arles and we found an aire beside a marina and with good bus connections to Arles and Nimes.  We were also becoming seriously worried about our leaks, so we took one day and went to Codognan to consult with a RV repair shop that specialized in leak control. (https://www.techniloisir.fr) He didn’t want to hear what we thought so as not to prejudice his own research. So we headed across the street to a lovely bakery for a coffee and goodies while we waited. He opined that the window was fine, but “It is raining in your camper.” We had serious leaks, just not at the window. We received valuable information but he had a line of camper vans waiting for repair so he could not work on our camper. (“It’s going to take a lot of work!” he predicted) SPOILER: Turned out that he was exactly right. But that is another post!

Back at our aire, we worked out the bus schedule and found the stop. Early one morning, we set off and thirty minutes later, we were in Arles.

We had a wonderful day.  The Foundation Vincent Van Gogh was unfortunately closed due to a new art exhibit being prepared but we set out to explore.

“Modern” Arles was wonderful, but there were lots of Roman ruins to see. 

We started at the Roman Amphitheater, which is still in use. It even has new metal galleries added.

Quite amazing to imagine actually going to gladiatorial contest, or later, a bull fight here, sitting on the very seats used by the ancients.  By the middle ages, it had became a veritable city as it was divided into houses.

Our next stop was the Constantine Baths from the fourth century AD.  Quite a lot of the hypocaust was still visible. 

We stopped at the Place de la Republique with its Roman obelisk and also visited the Church of St. Trophime.  

Perhaps the most interesting Roman site in Arles is the least known – the massive underground foundations of the old Roman forum, known as the cryptoporticus. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptoporticus)

We had a wonderful lunch sitting outside in one of the squares, before hopping the bus back home.