Aventure à Arles

This past Saturday, my program had another group trip, this one to Arles. Arles is a city that was built during the Romans way back during the Antiquity, and the city still contains the ancient ruins today. We started the day at the museum, where our professor explained the history of the city. I kind of drifted off here and there (sorry, I don't take notes on Saturdays), but I'll recount the brief history that I remember, just for background. The position of Arles was chosen because it is the last reasonable crossing point on the Rhone before it branches out in a delta. The city was built on one side of the river but had a bridge crossing to the other side. The cool thing is that the bridge was actually just a bunch of boats lined up next to each other that could be moved if needed. Ancient Arles contained all the major Roman sites: a forum, a theater, Roman baths, and a mini coliseum. As things crumbled over time, a lot of the ruins fell into the river and have been recovered over time from the river bed. The museum houses a lot of these relics, including a bust of Caesar!After the museum, we drove the rest of the way into the actual city, and went in search of lunch. I managed to find this delicious wrap:

After lunch, we met back up and began our tour of all the major spots. We started in a set of underground tunnels under the Hotel de Ville (city hall). These were built by the Romans under the forum and were used for storage and passage between the two main levels of the Forum.

Next, we headed to the ruins of the baths. Through a clever system of hot air and ventilation, the Romans actually had a heated pool in their bathhouse! That's pretty modern for thousands of years ago, if you ask me.

This was the "heating system"

Next we went to the cathedral in the center of the city. We couldn't go inside the actual church because there was a wedding going on, (side note: they wear traditional costumes in many weddings in Arles, and we got to see them!) but we did get to go inside the cloister, which is the best part anyway. 

After that, we went around the corner to the old theater. The plays that were put on there were open to all citizens, and the theater once housed thousands of people. Fun fact: in Roman plays, when somebody died, the actor switched places with a prisoner who had been condemned to death, and they actually killed him on stage. If you were sentenced to death, you had to hope you got a noble death in a duel and not one of the scenes where someone gets mauled by a bear.

Our last stop was the miniature coliseum, which in French is called an amphitheater. Though not as big as The Coliseum, this was still pretty large for a small city. It's still used today for lots of different events. In Roman times, it would have been used for any variety of violent events. The Romans liked violence. After the fall of the Roman Empire, an entire city was actually built inside the coliseum because the walls offered more protection, and watch towers were built for increased protection. Today, they just offer a fantastic view of the city and the river.

This trip was certainly more historical than our last one, but as always, great views and an adventure! I'd like to just take a moment to point out that everything I've just recounted was told to me in French, and I managed to understand and recount all of it. It's pretty gratifying to be able to see my French improving every day. I guess that whole study-abroad-speaking-French thing is paying off!