June 28, 2017

June 28, 2017

Our riverside hotel room is on the edge of the narrow old city of Arles, France.  We are only feet away from the view Van Gogh painted in his famous 'Starry Night over the Rhone'. The parking spaces available nearby are free overnight but costly during the day when tourists descend on the city. This morning we moved the car the three hundred yards to the free parking lot by the train station. There was only one open spot. Probably because of the Farmers Market taking over our section of Arles today.

After catching breakfast at a local bakery, Aimee dragged me through the Farmers Market that runs seemingly forever along the outside of the old City Walls. Eventually I pull her away and we find stairs that takes us over the walls into the town center.  Right ahead I see some Roman ruins. Arles was Julius Caesar’s capital of Trans-alpine Gaul. I read about Caesar's conquest of Gallic France in my High School Latin classes. This area was Rome’s first province over the Alps. That is why the region is known as Provence. Since it was Romanized so many years ago, Provence has as many ancient Roman ruins as Italy.

Right in front of us are the ruins of Arles’ Theater. Every Roman town had one for cultural and political presentations. It has been partially reconstructed and again used for local performances. Down the street is the Amphitheater or Arena.  This is where the Romans staged sporting events like gladiatorial battles and feeding Christians to lions. It is still in use today for bullfights.

A little further down the street is the Medieval Cloister of St Trophime. It and the church next door have some exquisite Romanesque sculptural decoration.

We are getting hungry so we pop next door to Forum Square for lunch.  We both have the Plat du Jour featuring a Catalon dish. Right as we are finishing, it starts to rain, so we hurry inside the Cryptoportico. This underground site has some of the original Forum arches. They are now 20 feet below modern Arles.

After lunch we make the long walk to Arles Museum of Antiquities. For the next hour or two we peruse the artifacts recovered from Roman Arles.  Despite the lack of English explanations it is still very interesting. The exhibit starts with a model of Roman Arles.  It is surprising how little the city has changed in the last 2000 years. Some of the statuary and bas-relief friezes preserved here are spectacular. There is also a whole section on mosaics recovered from upscale Roman villas across the River. The museum ends with dozens of sarcophagi popular in the late Roman era.

Arles was a major hub for Roman trade. Here goods were transferred from sea vessels to river boats for transport up and down the Rhone River. Lots of Amphora for transporting olive oil and wine are displayed along with a large wooden barge unearthed from the river bed.

Finished we hop on the Arles tourist bus for a ride to the Baths of Constantine.  Thermal Baths were a standard luxury item for all Roman towns. Next door we visited the uninteresting Reattu Art Museum.

We are running low on energy so we head home along the Rhone River pedestrian path. Right outside our hotel, we see a partially sunken River Cruise boat being salvaged for its interior furnishings. A diver pulls out a dozen chairs and a guitar and I-Pad. That must have ruined a nice vacation. Fortunately the boat overturned during the day (a month ago) when its passengers were ashore visiting Arles.

June 27, 2017

June 27, 2017

The French don't usually eat a big breakfast, so it is not standard at most hotels. We went looking for a coffee shop/bakery with great ambience. I thought the nearby Port d’Aix, the Arc de Triomphe of Marseille was a good choice. Aimee thought it a little seedy so we went back to the train station and got the combo special with chocolate croissant. We are surprised with the tiniest cup of to-go coffee we have ever seen.

After checking out of the hotel, we picked up our rental car. We got an unexpected upgrade. A minivan with automatic transmission and all the modern safety bells. It even came with the normally extra GPS.

Our first tourist stop is nearby Calanque National Park. The coastal terrain is mostly mountainous limestone.  The Mediterranean has eroded this soft mineral into beautiful steep-sided inlets. We park and follow a very popular trail out toward the Sugiton Calanque. The hike is noisy with swarms of cicadas. We make a short detour to an overlook and then head to the seashore where we are joined by dozens of young French sunbathing and cliff-jumping. It is warm, and the humidity is way higher than we are now used to. Plus we each brought only one tiny water bottle. On the steep return hike, we run out of water and barely make it back without passing out. We are feeling like those hiking rookies at the Grand Canyon we often make fun of. Back at the car we turn the AC on high, and buy two Seven-Ups and a half-gallon water bottle. We down it all in short order.

After a seemingly endless drive through the narrow streets of Marseille, we head northwest. Our next stop is the hilltop town of Les Baux des Provence. It is on France's list of Most Beautiful Villages. Les Baux sits atop a promontory of the the little Alps. After finding a pricey parking spot, we head into the cutesy tourist town that sits at its foot. On the far end we buy the audio guide for the tour of the Medieval fortress ruins. The castle was literally carved out of the hilltop. I found it interesting, but Aimee would have rather shopped. For the chemist in me, I was amused that the town gave its name to the aluminum ore (bauxite) first discovered here.

From Les Baux we drove to the nearby town of Arles, that will be our home for the next several days.

June 24-26, 2017

June 24-26, 2017

Yesterday afternoon we fell out of the pan and into the fire moving from the heat of Tucson to the toasty120 degrees of Phoenix. It is just temporary. We spent the night and left for the airport before dawn. But it was still 90!

At the airport we boarded a flight to Chicago.  It is fortunate we left this morning, as yesterday afternoon flights were getting cancelled because of the record temps.

We had a long layover in Chicago made longer with a delay to change planes. We paid extra for premium economy seats. Aimee thought it was well worth the cost. Besides a little extra legroom, we had our two-seat row all to ourselves.

After an uneventful flight we arrived in Paris, tired and jet-lagged. Unfortunately we aren’t done yet. Our goal is to drive the countryside of France. So we hop on the train and take it south as far as we can.  Since we couldn’t be sure of when our flight would arrive, we booked the train four hours later. We are tiring of layovers. This is too much waiting.  Aimee wants to fire her travel agent.

We rode the TGV bullet train. It is not as nice as I remember and certainly not as good as the Japanese.  I think trains are going the way of airlines, and squeezing seats together. Four hours and 500 miles later we pull into Marseille on the Mediterranean coast. It is almost 6 pm. Fortunately, our hotel is across the street.

We check in and get a second wind and decide to do a quick check of the local area. It is a short stroll downhill to the Old Port.  Marseille is one of France’s oldest cities, established as a trading port by the Greeks in 600 BC.  The old harbor is now filled with modern pleasure craft, a giant Ferris wheel and a large mirrored roof that reminds us of "The Bean" in downtown Chicago.

We have a hard time picking a restaurant for dinner. We want to have some of the local seafood but neither of us is fond of oysters and mussels that are popular here. We opt for fish and calamari at a diner recommended by the hotel.

June 16, 2017

June 16, 2017

In our travels around the country, we have run into many Mormon historic sites.  Nauvoo and Salt Lake City are well-known, but LDS history is intertwined with that of the US West. We have visited historic sites in Independence, MO, San Diego, CA and along the Mormon Trail that follows their migration route to Utah.  Soon after settling the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young sent parties to explore and colonize the surrounding area hoping to eventually establish a new country.

Arizona is a member of this Mormon Belt. The church recently built a Temple in the Tucson area and it is open to the public until its dedication later in the summer.  After that no non-Mormon is allowed entrance.  So we take advantage and sign up for a tour this afternoon.

After driving to a local LDS meeting house, we watch a short film and then board a bus that takes us the few miles to the new Temple site.  There we don booties and are escorted through the richly decorated building.  I am surprised to find it is unlike other Christian churches.  There is no central assembly area, rather a series of special purpose rooms.  Sabbath services are conducted at local meeting houses.  The temple is reserved for special occasions.  There is a small chapel, an instructional room, a Celestial room for meditation, and several Sealing (Wedding) Sites.  Mormon couples travel great distances to be married for eternity in a Temple. There are also changing rooms where congregants don white robes that symbolize purity. The most unusual room is the Baptistery.  This room contains a spa-size pool riding atop twelve oxen that represent the tribes of Israel.  Surprisingly it is not for ordinary baptism.  It is for baptism of dead ancestors by proxy.

Every aspect of the tour is organized and staffed by dozens of volunteers and young women doing their Mission work.  Every fifteen minutes another busload of visitors arrive.  This will go on for the next month.  While many are curious locals like us, more than a few seem to be Mormons coming from all over the country for a visit.  I never dreamed this was a must-see event.