Arles is the city where Danita and I took our first ride from the back of a police car. We were lost, and having a hard time finding street names. This isn’t at all unusual for us. We saw a police car, pointed to our tourist map, and asked how to get to our objective. The police didn’t have any idea where it was. But they offered to drive us there. So we hopped in. They drove all around the historic part of town while I offered happy friendly waves to every pedestrian we saw. It took them 15 minutes to find the objective that was a few blocks away, and we all had a blast.

Where is the tower?

Yes, it was a real police car.

Yes, it was a police car

Arles was a Roman town. As such, it had a Forum, Crypts, a Colosseum, and a theater. We saw all that stuff. The Colosseum and theater were repaired and are still in use today. The Colosseum is used for bull fights. The theater is used for plays. Here’s a shot of the Colosseum as seen from out lunch table. (The potato, cheese,and ham crepe was delicious.)

The cool thing about Roman theaters is that the Romans liked cool tech toys. So did the audiences. They had ropes and pulleys to raise and lower backdrops. They had trap doors under the floor and cables from above for a dramatic entrance or exit. They use smoke and other special effects. Most fun of all, they had a retractable (cloth) roof for protection from the sun.

Arles is also the town where Vincent Van Gogh spent the last years of his life. After cutting off his ear, he was committed to the local mental hospital where he continued painting. One of his more famous paintings is of this garden, which today looks exactly as it did when Van Gogh painted it.