Travel to Arles

Thursday March 12, 2009 Arles France
We were able to sign on last night for a short time so we were able to check emails and post our blogs. BTW I have started a collection of Manhole Covers with the names of the towns we are visiting & our shoes.. you may have noticed one or two in the last group of pictures. I was so excited tonight, yes Martha got me out after dark, to find a manhole cover with Arles on it. Doesn’t take much to make me happy…. We were also happy to find a bakery that was still open so we could buy some bread to eat. We found that this small town shuts down at 8 PM

Was good to find emails last night from family and friends… And also was delighted to find one from a young man from Japan who was our room mate back in the hostel in Granada Spain. Otsubo Masahide, who we just called Hide, has returned home and it was good to see that he remembered the traveling twins. We have given out our cards to lots of people but he is the first one to respond with an email… Ooops… Kirsten from California who we also met in Granada, has been corresponding with Martha.

We left Lourdes this morning on the train back to Toulouse and a 2 hour layover on our way to Arles..…. This turned into 3 hours because of delays. Once we boarded the train they kept announcing things in French…. I turned around and said “does anybody here speak English and can tell us what they just said”. To our great relief a very nice young man several rows back said he could help us. He is French and has a flat in Toulouse with another place in Marseille, the end of the route for this train, he has visited the states several times on business and so speaks excellent English… guess what.. he also has a twin brother.. small world. Anyway he was a great help to us with all the announcements and even helped us get our bags off the train. During the trip he also gave us suggestions on what to see while we are in Provence.

Because of the delays it was already getting dark when we arrived in Arles…but after some very helpful Americans helped us get these 2 large bags down 2 sets of stairs and up another set (this is the biggest problem with train stations..the stairs) we found a taxi and arrived at our hotel without anymore delays. It’s a very nice hotel with all the usual amenities
And as usual problems with getting the internet in our room. Martha is currently in the lobby using the Wifi but I thought that I would get this typed and see about signing on tomorrow to post this blog.`The great thing with using the hostels they have all had great free internet because most of the people using them are young and, like us, many carry their laptops with them.

Friday, March 13, 2009 Arles France
Just woke up after a great nights sleep in a king size bed, we are using the single bed to layout our stuff, we have found that after 50 years we still each sleep on the same sides of the bed as when we were children and make good bed mates. We are doing breakfast with hot tap water coffee (we bought instant coffee in Lourdes) and bread from the bakery last night. They offer a French breakfast here at the hotel but we do not feel like it’s worth 8.50 euros each. The bread is hard but it better if you soak it in the coffee. Will also share the last apple from Lourdes. We do know how to eat on the cheap and stretch our euros, which will not go as far in France because this is a more expensive country than Spain. Also we have CNN on the TV in our room. All we had been able to get was the BBC so it's nice to watch CNN for a change. But, you know what, we didn’t really miss the TV all that much when we were in the Hostels as we kept up on the news by using the internet. I have even kept up with my soap “All My Children” by checking the recaps on the internet every so often. Will add to this when we come back from our day of exploring Arles. A beautiful day… cool in the shade but need my sun hat on when walking in the open. We have just returned from 2 hours of walking about in Arles. Found the Rhone River, made famous in WW2 by the bombing of many bridges across this river. We followed the Rick Steves walking map to see all the very old Roman ruins and also the steel and concrete Easels set up to display famous paintings done in Arles by the artist Vincent Van Gogh. We also found the Monoplex which is their version of our Walmart. Bought food for lunch and will go back tonight to find our food for dinner.

A history lesson: Arles, occupied first by Celtic tribes, then by a Greek colony, it became Roman when Julius Caesar gave the colony to the veterans of his legions. Starting from the earliest days of Christianity, the city also became an important religious center. Destroyed and ravaged by invasions during the Middle Ages, Arles was rebuilt during the 12th century. The magnificence of its medieval monuments is evidence to the vitality and wealth of that period. Many of its building date back 2000 years and are listed as World Heritage Monuments and Arles is a member of the French network of Ville d’art et d’historie.

Last night I had thought that we were in a very small town…not so…We were just inside a small sleepy section of town. Found a active Arles not far away from our hotel to explore. Resting now and will go back out after hour lunch and computer break time.