Arles France

Neon Lion - Arles, France - © Frank H. Jump

Lions of August - Arles, France - © Frank H. Jump

Old Provence - © Theodore Andrea Cook - Google Books

Here is a great old review that describes this “untidy town.

The day I arrived in Arles was gorgeously hot and sunny. I had come by road across a plain rich with blossom, where it was hard to believe the mistral ever blew. Arles has a transpontine suburb, whose name sounds like the melodious clashing of tin cans—Trinquetaille. From Trinquetaille one crosses the swiftest river in Europe, tremendously wide and impressive at this point, twenty-seven miles from its mouth, and enters at the same time Provence and Arles itself.

Today this city of the past is a small, untidy town, in which one comes upon the memorials of antiquity in a casual, unexpected fashion, so that one almost thinks they will not be twice in the same place. It has a sort of sunny and haphazard gaiety, a charm of atmosphere and feeling which you cannot pin down to the possession of this building or that monument. My room at the hotel was floored with those welcoming red tiles you may see in Van Gogh’s picture of his bedroom in the yellow house. One seemed to draw a superabundant energy from the warmth of the air, the lavish yellow brilliance of the sun. I was tremendously hungry. ¹ Originally published in 1938.

The food in Arles was nothing to write home about. And though this article was written 70 years ago, the town is still a bit untidy, but still breathtakingly gorgeous. The smell of the Rhône can also take your breath away. And to think, radioactive water could have been streaming down as we walked over to gaze at Arles ancient beauty.

Lions of August - Arles, France

1890s Wood Engraving, Antique Map of Arles Rhone Delta

Arles (Arle in Provençal) is a city in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône département, of which it is a sous-préfecture, in the former province of Provence. The Rhône river divides itself in two arms in Arles, forming the Camargue delta. Because the Camargue is administratively part of Arles, the latter is the largest commune in France in terms of territory. Its area is 759 km².

Arles is an ancient town, having been established by the Greeks as early as the 6th century BC under the name of Theline. It was captured by the Celtic Saluvii in 535 BC, who renamed it to Arelate. The Romans took the town in 123 BC and expanded it into an important city, with a canal link to the Mediterranean Sea being constructed in 104 BC. However, it struggled to escape the shadow of Massalia (Marseille) further along the coast.

Arles was badly affected by the invasion of Provence by the Muslim Saracens and the Franks, who took control of the region in the 6th century. In 855 it was made the capital of a Frankish Kingdom of Arles, which included Burgundy and part of Provence, but was frequently terrorised by Saracen and Viking raiders. In 888, Rodolphe, Count of Auxerre (now in north-western Burgundy) founded the kingdom of Bourgogne Transjurane (literally, beyond the Jura mountains), which included western Switzerland as far as the river Reuss, Valais, Geneva, Chablais and Bugey.

In 933, Hugh of Arles (“Hugues de Provence”) gave his kingdom up to Rodolphe II, who merged the two kingdoms into a new Kingdom of Arles. In 1033, King Rodolphe III bequeathed the Kingdom to Emperor Conrad II the Salic. Though his successors counted themselves kings of Arles, few went to be crowned in the cathedral. Most of the territory of the Kingdom was progressively incorporated to France. During these troubled times, the ampitheatre was converted into a fortress, with watchtowers built at each of the four quadrants and a minuscule walled town being constructed within. The population was by now only a fraction of what it had been in Roman times, with much of old Arles lying in ruins.

The town regained political and economic prominence in the 12th century, with the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa traveling there in 1178 for his coronation. In the 12th century, it became a free city governed by an elected podestat (literally “power”), who appointed the consuls and other magistrates. It retained this status until the French Revolution of 1789. Arles joined the county of Provence in 1239 but suffered its prominence being eclipsed once more by Marseille. In 1378, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV ceded the remnants of the Kingdom of Arles to the Dauphin of France (later King Charles VI of France) and the Kingdom ceased to exist even on paper. ²