Arles’ Fantastic Farmer’s Market: A museum, a march, Francis Berthault and the train

The French seem to be pretty laid back, that is until the train gets too crowded. After a 7:14am. train ride to Arles, France this morning we returned on the 7:26pm. The train was coming from a long distance and when we boarded many more people boarded than seats were available. We were packed into the space between cars like sardines in a can. Luckily it was only a 28 minute journey. About 10 minutes into the ride two women began yelling at each other. One of them couldn’t let go so after a bit a few other women also yelled at her. This went on far too long, about 5 minutes, and happened with the two women closest to me. Other than that, the French smile, gesticulate and laugh a lot in public.

Welcome to Arles. Below you see what remains of one of the gates to the city of Arles, and a monument just inside the gate.

We came to Arles on the recommendation of my sister Marjie who has a bit of history in France. She claims it has the best farmer’s market she has ever attended, every Saturday if you’re interested. Agreed, I’ve never been to a better one, and it is the biggest. It is reported to be 450 stalls, a lot of them produce and about half of them food of some sort. The produce was overwhelmingly gorgeous and healthy looking. The only picture I have is this, spices.

Arles is an interesting comparison to Bruges. They were both walled around the old part of the city, with mostly big block stone construction of buildings. The old towns are filled with winding streets, shops, restaurants and ancient structures. There is not a lot of auto traffic in either old downtown, perhaps more in Arles; but also horse and carriages in Bruges. Both cities are tourist attractions. Arles draws far fewer tourists, thus it lacks the sometime frenetic energy of Bruges. The energy exception in Arles is the market, which was crowded, lively and bursting with energy (and samples). Most of the time it is easier to walk in Arles than in Bruges. We thought Bruges was prettier and cleaner. Yet, both have characteristics to recommend them. Like Nimes, Arles has a Roman Coliseum from 1st century BC and it seated 21, 000 spectators in its time. Like in Nimes there is some misfitted modern seating. It also has somewhat contiguous ruins from the same period. Though we are in awe of what the Romans were able to construct, the ruins in Arles felt a bit like been there, done that.

Because we arrived in Arles early for the market, and had a relatively late return train, we had a lot of time to fill after our market visit, about seven hours. We visited the tourism office, but found there wasn’t a lot of attractions we wanted to see that our walk through town had not shown us. Having that much time created a perspective shift that allowed us to slow down and look deeper into all that Arles has to offer.

People who have followed our travels might recall we have a borderline obsession with wooden doors on old buildings. In Mexico I often posted pictures of old doors that had been lovingly refinished. In Europe, so far, we are surprised at how many wooden doors appear in drastic need of attention. We are not sure it means anything more than doors aren’t a priority here. Arles certainly could be a haven for a door restorer, if anyone cares.

One of the things we ran into three times as we traversed the city was a women’s lib march. There was a lot of sign carrying and sloganeering. At times they would stop and sing. At one point they stopped in the main square where they had a sound system. The apparent leader of the group put on an impromptu dance class. As the steps to the dance progressed, she persuaded onlookers to join in the dance. After training came the actual performance and it was exhilarating to watch a bunch of strangers come together to perform a mild hip hop exhibition with zeal and in front of a substantial crowd of onlookers. Inhibitions seemingly vanished.

I have never been a big fan of museums other than art museums, or ones with dinosaurs when I was a kid. With all of the time on our hands, however, I followed Sheila’s suggestion we visit the Musee Arlaten. It contains collections of the arts, ethnology/culture and history of the Provencal region. The museum was founded in 1896, on the site of Roman ruins, as a response to the Provencal region ethnographically being left behind in many ways. It includes a large amount of multimedia devices that communicate the ethnographic history of the region.

In the twentieth century it was renovated. I realize I have complained about the mix of modern and old at times. In this instance I am fascinated and impressed by what was created. To me it is totally original and striking. The Museum collections have been assembled and recomposed around two large backlit glass elevator like structures, and in about ten presentation wings. Hopefully, photos can convey this. Another part of the revamping is the restoration of the Jesuit Chapel, being attached to the museum and used as a setting for exhibitions. Included are dioramas, costumes of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, musical and festive objects, furniture, earthenware and more.

One of the museum objectives, and general ethnography objectives has been to understand cultures that did get left behind in their development, true of the area of Arles known as Provence, or Mistral. This made for some interesting reading and presentations. In spite of my predisposed prejudice, I enjoyed the museum almost as much any museum I visited in the past.

As we wandered after we left the museum, we saw a street food cart selling glace, which I believe is gelato? I decided to ask if they had any sugar and dairy free items. Voila! The mango was both and that meant Sheila could have it without any unhealthy symptoms. My reward for asking was a silky triple chocolate dish of glace. The glace are the creation of a Belgian Chocolatier named Jeff. Good news, he has a shop near our apartment.

With so much time at our disposal we went to the park. A specific area of the park had nine artists painting park scenes. We sat in the sun and cooked for a time, which was heavenly. Yesterday was the most heat we had experienced since leaving Mexico. Four pictures from the lovely park follow.

One final adventure in Arles was Francis Berthault. We happened into his humble gallery on a nearly deserted street. I was intrigued by pictures that from the street appeared to be the work of a child. When we went in, we discovered a gentleman of my age (the artist) and the ensuing conversation covered childhood, buried intuition and personalities, icebergs as metaphor, Wim Wenders angels, the insidious role of society in the lack of creativity and more. See link below if you want more.

https://www.estades.com/en/francis-berthault/

That’s it for now.