Arles

Hallelujah.

We have finally arrived at Arles.

I last posted just after arriving at Cavaillon, a pleasant town madu unpleasant by the loudspeakers blasting commercial radio into the main square and streets. We found a two star hotel in the centre of town, run by an amiable man slightly past his prime sporting cowboy boots. So too was the hotel. Our room included a non-descript painting which was slightly askew, so Boronia felt obliged to attempt to straighten it, whereupon it fell off the wall. The shelf in the bathroom, above the toilet, tilted downwards at an alarming rate. The curtins were fashionable pre-war and the furniture featured chipped paint, a reminder of the gilded age. Boronia's immediate comment on taking full stock of the room was that everything in the room had brewers droop. It wasn't clear to me if I had been included in the assessment.

From Cavaillon we crossed the Durance and tramped through pine forests and vinyards towards a chain of mountains which we learned went by the name of Les Alpilles. Suddenly we had arrived at Eyglieres, a very pretty little village set on the edge of the hills. Medieval church, ruins, stone houses, it was truly charming. After a drink to quench our thirst, we found a room, and went exploring. The only downside was that it had been discovered by many tourists before us which meant that every cafe, restaurant and shop in the town charged a considerable premium. But even so, we enjoyed ourselves and felt totally relaxed.

Boronia's joy was unlimited when we awoke to the sounds of a local market being set up in the street below. After an hour or so wandering amongst the stalls, the discipline of our backpacks exerting enough superior force to just, by the merest margin, overwhelm the natural inclination in some quarters to spend, purchase and buy (name not mentioned to protect the guilty).

From Eygalieres, on Friday, we climbed through the forests of Les Alpilles to St Remy de Provence, the site of Vincent Van Gogh's stay in a local sanitarium in 1889//90 and a notable roman archaelogical site. We avoided the tourist trail, walked around the town, and found a wonderful Italian inspired restaurant.

From St Remy, we had planned a short day walking to St Etienne at the western end of Les Alpilles. An hour out of St Remy, we reached the 400 km mark by my ongoing calculation. This obsession of mine is looked down upon in some quarters as overly bureaucratic, for reasons I find hard to fathom....something incoherent about the process of journeying, the meditative reflection made possible by the step by step progress, not the destination, being the point of the trek. Of course, without knowing how far we have come, we wouldnt really have any means of evaluating progress, assessing the likely time of completion, or even the likelihood of completing the trek. These are clearly important strategic considerations in advancing along any route or path, and clearly ought not to be underestimated.

We arrived to find St Etienne to be a quite strange town, modern, strung out over a kilometre or more along a quite busy road, with nothing open - it was Saturday afternoon afterall - and our projected accommodation booked out by a wedding party...We faced a long six plus hour walk to Arles, some alfresco camping, or a night huddled in a bus-stop. In the end, we decided to take a bus to Arles, only some twelve kms away by road, or twenty by the path we would have taken through the western end of Les Alpilles. After a two hour wait, most spent in a roadside bar, our bus arrived and within fifteen minutes we were in the centre of Arles. Not the triumphant entry I had planned in my mind, whereby the weary pilgrims walk up to the roman amphitheatre perched on the edge of the Rhone, but we have learned to accept the inevitable and to avoid the evitable.

Arles will perhaps require a post of its own. Our first night was spent in a hotel which displays a magnificent bronze of a naked man shooting a bow and arrow into the air. This prompted a degree of commentary comparing -adversely - my physique to the statue's, and a suggestion that we might have fallen into an interesting part of town. The photo on the wall in the room, clearly taken in the foyer, which showed a man descending the stairs, the statue in the foreground, a matador in very tight trousers about to meet him, and a woman wearing matadors trousers, but not much else, seemed to confirm the fears. They turned out to be totally unfounded. the room was excellent, the hotel quiet, and all was well. in any case, we had previously decided to reward oursemlves by upgrading to a three star hotel, so we will see what that brings.

For now, au revoir

mike