Friday 5/17/19 – Well I should have named this blog entry Arles – Final Day – Part 2 since my train didn’t leave Arles until after 5 PM and I didn’t get into Carcassonne until late. So all the pics are from Arles.
The first few are from the Market Day. Most of the towns in France have at least one market day a week while others have more. It’s like a combination farmer’s market/flea market/garage sale. You see everything! But it is fun to walk through and check all the stuff out and of course there’s lots of great people watching! And they give tons of samples out so you can pretty much eat a free lunch there! Lol
The French love their cheese as you can see by a couple of the pics but the colorful cheese was too much for me. The green one had pesto in it (not bad), the blue one had lavender in it (yuk!), and the red one had some crazy hot peppers in it (too hot for me!). And yes that’s a picture of a live goat. I have no idea what she was doing with it there.
The next set of pictures is from the Roman Arena (Amphitheater). This well preserved arena is still in use today. Nearly 2,000 years ago, gladiators fought wild animals to the delight of 20,000 screaming fans. Today they have bullfights here but none were on this week (Bummer!).
The arena takes its name from the current floor where the action takes place – “arena” derives from the Latin word for sand, which was spread across the floor to absorb the blood. The arena is a fine example of Roman engineering. After Rome fell and stability was replaced by Dark Ages chaos, the huge structure was put to good use – throughout medieval times and until the early 1800’s, the stadium became a fortified town with towers added, arches bricked up, and 200 homes crammed within its circular defenses. Parts of three of the medieval towers survived.
I also walked to the top of one of the towers and included some pics looking over the city. One of the pics shows the Frank Ghery architected building in the distance that I shared the other day.
The next set of pics is from the Classical Theater. This first-century BC Roman theater once seated 10,000. For 500 years, ancient Romans gathered here for entertainment. The original structure was much higher, with 33 rows of seats covering three levels to accommodate demand. During the Middle Ages, the old theater became a convenient town quarry. It is still used for events with seating for 2,000. Two Corinthian columns are all that remain of a three-story stage wall that once featured more than 100 columns and statues painted in vibrant colors. Principal actors entered through the central arch, over which a grandiose statue of Caesar Augustus stood. A portion of that statue is housed in the Arles Ancient History Museum, which I visited and included a pic of it.
The next three pics are from the Cloisters of St. Trophime. The many small columns were scavenged from the ancient Roman Theater I just mentioned.
And the last pic is a bunch of guys playing the French version of bocci. It’s called boules (also called pétanque). It started here in the early 1900’s (I think the Italians started bocci thousands of years ago!). It’s similar to bocci in that they use a small ball like the paulino in bocci as the target ball but theirs is called a cochonnet (piglet). They then throw heavy metal balls towards it to try to get closest (just like bocci) to score points. The first team to get to 13 points wins. Since I’m such a great bocci player (all my relatives are laughing right now!) I should have went out there and took over the court but I didn’t. If you look closely at the pic you can see the guy’s thrown ball in mid air!
OK, so that’s enough about Arles. Tomorrow I’ll tell you and show you all there is about Carcassonne! TGIF and Happy Friday all! Enjoy!
Jeff
The Wandering Italian 