On the trail of Van Gogh - Part 1

Since we were in the south of France, we obviously had to go to Provence with its lovely fields of lavender and wonderful scenery. The one thing we forgot to check though was the period of the lavender season, which is apparently in July so we were about 2 months early, haha… It wasn’t a big loss though cos the scenery was still breath-taking and there was the added bonus of less tourists around so everything was a lot more pleasant.

Our first stop was the town of Arles where we visited its weekend market. It’s kind of like our pasar malam but they sell vegetables, meat etc on top of the usual assortment of cooked food and clothes. The clothes and bags are all along one section while the cooked food, vegetables, meat and fruit in another all along the road. The roads were packed with cars and trucks, so it was a little crazy to get parking. As it was a clear, sunny morning, everything just looked fabulous. We bought some strawberries to eat but unfortunately they didn’t taste as good as they looked.

Beautiful produce

We also walked around the town for a short while and managed to find the café terrace which Van Gogh made famous in his painting ‘Café Terrace at Night’. It’s now renamed as Café Van Gogh and there were tourists inside taking photos. We contended ourselves with pictures from the outside cos we had a more important place to visit, the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence where Van Gogh stayed in after the infamous ear-severing incident.

Before making our place to the asylum, which is just outside the town of Saint-Remy-de-Provence, we stopped by for some sustenance. Lunch was a simple affair at a family-run restaurant and I had the best fish soup ever! The French fish soup is different from our Chinese ones, it was creamy and you eat it with cheese and bread. Luckily CS didn’t like the taste of it so I could devour it all by myself. We also stopped by a free museum about perfume making, it was rather non-descript so we took a while to find it. Though it was quite small, it was informative and we did learn quite a few things.

Totoros, lost in Provence

Hardly looks like an asylum

We finally arrived at the asylum and being typically blur, we ended up in the real asylum, lol… The old asylum had been preserved so that admirers of Van Gogh can visit it, we just didn’t expect that there would be a modern version still running. We did wonder why it looked so modern but didn’t think any more of it, luckily the staff were kind enough to point us to the right direction. Though it was an asylum, there was a sense of peace and the scenery was absolutely amazing. There were lovely flowers and their scents perfumed the surroundings.

Stopping to smell the flowers

The place had copies of his paintings all over with a small write-up on the pieces which were quite helpful. There were also articles to explain how care was provided for the patients during Van Gogh’s time, which were quite educational and also shows how far we have come along since. For instance, water therapy where the patient was placed in a tub of water used to be quite common, this would not be done today.

Olive trees

Exquisite surroundings

After leaving the asylum, we made our way to Roussillon as the tourist office had highly recommended it. The red cliffs and ochre quarries were supposed to be a sight to behold but alas we were too late and couldn’t enter the park. We stumbled onto a house that was being built so we drove in to get a closer look at the cliffs however the owner of the house appeared and told us it was ‘private property’ so we had to leave, sigh… From the little that we managed to see, it did look rather pretty, too bad we had to arrive late. Here are some pictures of what we managed to take, and there are still more areas to explore in Provence!

Red Cliff (no, not that one)