You’ll never look at a van Gogh the same way again after visiting here

Good luck buying a train ticket to Arles, France, a place hard for Anglophones to pronounce. Make a sound at the ticket counter as if clearing your throat from years of Gauloises cigarettes. Or use a ticket machine to avoid speaking.

Arles - embrace the beauty around the town that inspired Vincent van Gogh.

Alight at a hideous and inconveniently located train station. After that, it’s all brilliant.

There are wonderful things to see in Arles. The Roman amphitheatre has survived, from its seating to its drains, and is still used for concerts and controversial bullfights. Beside it, the remains of a Roman theatre aren’t as eye-catching, but are still impressive.

The Museum of Ancient Art presents emperors’ busts with knocked-off noses, oil lamps, jewellery and a Greco-Roman barge. Most magnificent are the sarcophagi carved with congregations of figures in togas.

You can have your fill of museums in Arles. Museon Arlaten is a Renaissance mansion that rises from Roman ruins; its spectacular contemporary staircase is backed by a fabulous wall of Christian Lacroix fabrics.

Arles drove Vincent van Gogh mad, but inspired him, too.Credit: Getty Images

An alternative choice: Musee Reattu, lodged in an old priory, for fine arts, including numerous works by Picasso, who spent time here. Or the exhibition and arts centre LUMA Arles, which looks like a crushed aluminium tin, the work of Frank Gehry. One critic called the building a crime, but the interior is a knockout.

Cafe la Nuit, made famous by Vincent van Gogh’s painting Cafe Terrace at Night.Credit: iStock

Most visitors see only the Vincent van Gogh Arles Foundation, and fair enough. It covers the life and work of the Dutch painter through ever-changing exhibitions. The current one (running until September 8, 2024) traces the influence of van Gogh’s Starry Night on other artists.

This famous canvas was painted in Arles in 1888. Van Gogh was in town for only15 months, but the light and colours of Arles produced a burst of creativity.

The Dutchman knocked out 200 paintings, some among his best-known works: Sunflowers, Bedroom in Arles, and portraits of cafe owner Madame Ginoux, also immortalised by Paul Gauguin.

Place du Forum has barely changed since van Gogh painted Cafe Terrace at Night. The cafe still has yellow walls and awnings and the same evening glow you see in his painting.

Inspiration … the sunflowers of Arles.Credit: Getty Images

You could while away quite some time in the squares of Arles. You can inhabit a van Gogh painting, sitting at a terrace table looking onto an impression of lampposts and green shutters and waiters who move like blobs in the corner of your eye.

That’s exactly what you should do. You’d be dull of soul if you visited Arles just to tick off a list of Roman sights and museums. This is a town in which to enjoy sunlight at street corners, shadows under the arches of the amphitheatre and the smudges of flowers in hanging baskets.

You wouldn’t want to get your soul too agitated, though. That’s what happened to van Gogh, who spent his time in Arles half-poisoned by paint pigments and a faulty gas lamp, and ended up cutting off his ear.

Is it indelicate that the hospital-asylum he ended up in, and painted several times, is now L’Espace van Gogh, pretty with flowers? Probably, but you can indelicately enjoy buying van Gogh coasters and tea towels as a memento.

The Roman amphitheatre in Arles.

If you stay on in Arles after dark, you’ll get a starry night and splashes of yellow from street lamps that streak the old town’s cobbles. But really, a day visit will be enough.

That’s not to dismiss Arles: you can pass a very fine day here, moseying around and feeling arty. You can fill your time and thoroughly enjoy it, then be happy to move on. And every time you see a van Gogh painting afterwards, you’ll think of this place, hot in the sun and exploding with colour and passion.

THE DETAILS

FLY
Etihad flies from Melbourne and Sydney via Abu Dhabi to Paris, with codeshare connections on Air France to Marseille, 90 kilometres from Arles. See etihad.com

CRUISE
Uniworld River Cruises has an eight-day Burgundy & Provence cruise between Arles and Lyon from $5299 a person, including accommodation, meals, gratuities and guided shore excursions. Cruises depart regularly between late March and early November. See uniworld.com

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The writer was a guest of Uniworld River Cruises.

9Now’s Getaway goes to France takes a closer look at the wonder of Paris and France’s diverse regions. (9Now is owned by Nine, owner of this masthead). Watch here.