After a morning walk through the Carmargue, I set off to Arles, home of French bullfighting. The arena in Arles dates back to the Roman era. After Marseilles was sacked for backing Pompey instead of Caesar, Arles became the main port town for the region. The arena itself seats about 20,000 people, who would come to see the standard Roman blood sports – gladiator duels, Christians vs. wild animals, etc. During the Middle Age, people took advantage of the high outside walls of the arena and built their homes inside of it as a defense against the barbarians. The stadium hosted some 120 homes and two churches. Today, the structure has returned to its Roman roots, and mostly hosts bullfighting events. These days the odds are stacked heavily against the “wild” animals, but all 20,000 seats fill up for the bloodshed just the same.
Arles is/was also home to an ancient Roman theater. Not much remains of it today, although portions of it are being rebuilt. During the 14th century, the Christians wanted a cathedral, and it seemed oh-so-much-easier to borrow stone from that old run-down pagan amphitheater than to go out and quarry more. So Arles has a fairly run-of-the-mill cathedral (as 14th century cathedrals go) and lost a terrific piece of Roman antiquity, of which little remains but the columns (too Roman to adapt to church use).
The sad part is that I, too, have stopped being impressed by most of this. Just as I got castle fatigue in Ireland, I have antiquity and vista fatigue now. After hiking in the Alps, there’s not a lot of walking that seems equally inspiring. After after so many Renaissance cathedrals, they fail to impress. 14th century architecture? Ho-hum.
So it’s probably a good thing that I’ve started thinking about my trip in the past tense. I’ve only got five days left. For most people, five days would seem like a pretty decent vacation. But after five weeks, it seems like I’m almost home. Which doesn’t seem like such a bad thing by now.