Close your eyes and imagine. No actually, keep your eyes wide open and let yourself go.... Scented lavender fields, white horses running free in the Camargue, the sun setting over the Rhone River or old stone houses... Provence exudes a very special exoticism - even for the French - and has a rich and varied heritage.
Arles is above all a city of more than 2,500 years old made of ruins and whose Roman and Romanesque monuments are classified as World Heritage of Humanity. This is a little (but just a little then) the reason why the city has endowed itself, in 1995, with the Museum of Ancient Arles. Dedicated to its past, it is itself built on the ruins of a circus.
A visit to this museum takes you back a few centuries to a time when men could put on skirts without unleashing the anger of masculinists and when laurel was used for something other than cooking.
In short, during your peregrinations, you will be able to visit the ruins of the forum, the ancient theater, the arenas, the circus (imagining what gladiatorial fights might have looked like), contemplate the steles and try to understand the different beliefs and mythologies...
If we come back to the museum, you should know that it also houses the wreck of a 31-meter long Roman boat! We raise our glass to the installers and to the architect who had to design an extension for this jewel classified "National Treasure".
Finally among the works to be discovered is THE presumed bust of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. For the record, it was discovered in the Rhone River, buried under piles of mud and some mountains of garbage.
Going around through the Museum of Ancient Arles, it is thus finally almost face to face with the one who was the conqueror of Gaul, this very ancient territory of France not to be confused with its homonym the General de Gaulle.
On a more serious note, if there is still a need to make you want to find all of these works in their native setting, you should know that the Louvre Museum was the first to exhibit them, and that the National Museum of China in Beijing has devoted an exhibition to "The Mediterranean in the Louvre's Collections". So, ready to discover Arles?
To prepare your trip.
Vanessa for Comme des Français
Continue your journey into antiquity with these items:
- Grand the forgotten city
- The impressive Bavay Forum
- Another city with a history spanning thousands of years