Historic South of France; day trip from Marseillan to historic Béziers and those murderous Crusaders; one night in Arles; Arles Arena, the ancient Roman amphitheatre; Hotel de L’Amphitheatre; Van Gogh exhibition; currently kaput Van Gogh Café; two Arles restaurants – Gaudina and La Gueule du Loup; downtown Arles and the Rhône riverside
A. Day Trip to Béziers
With so many day-tripping possibilities available from Marseillan (for examples, see Part 2 of this trilogy), we almost didn’t get to Béziers. I’m so glad we did!
Béziers City Centre
Parking is free at the open-air Parking du Vieux Pont. From there, you can walk over the old bridge and up the hill into the historic town centre, ascending either by several long flights of stairs, or three lifts.
Or a combination; I think we did two lifts and one set of stairs.
At the top, we stopped for coffee at what turned out to be the Bistrot de l’Hotel la Prison, with magnificent views of the surrounding countryside. You could easily spend a night at the beautifully restored Hotel la Prison – without even having to steal a baguette or even disturb the peace. It gets good reviews, too. (See here for the website and its gorgeous picture of the hotel, taken from a better angle.)
It’s a beautiful and fairly extensive city centre, though unfortunately its famous market was closed for major renovations.
Roy, Burrata Boy
Roy can’t get over the splendour of the local salade italienne, or salade burrata. For a very reasonable price (as low as €10, even, just A$16 or so), it comes topped with a fresh, fat, whole burrata, ripe tomatoes, olive oil, and sometimes quite a lot of yummy jambon, too.
So, after briefly admiring the nearby statue of Béziers-born Paul Riquet (1609-1680) the visionary 17th-century engineer responsible for the extraordinary Canal du Midi, my man succumbed to yet another burrata feast in a nearby square.
Béziers History
Archaeologists think it’s one of the oldest cities in France, if not the oldest. It may be even older than Marseille. Built by the Greeks in the 6th century BC, it was re-established by the Romans in 36-35BC as a place for military veterans to settle.
The Albigensian Crusades
Béziers was a Languedoc stronghold of Catharism, a Christian sect that the Catholic Church condemned as heretical. So, Catholic forces exterminated them in the 20-year-long genocidal Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229). This was part of the wider Crusades, and just as brutal and bloody as the slaughter in the Middle East. During this time, at least 200,000 and as many as a million Cathars are thought to have been killed in France.
What was Catharism?
From what I managed to glean online, Catharism was a version of Christianity based on Gnosticism: esoteric knowledge, a group of religious ideas from around the first century. Unfortunately, writings on the subject were largely destroyed by non-Gnostic Christians who wanted to wipe them out. The Cathars used a bible in the language that people spoke, as opposed to most other Western Christians whose bible was in Latin, spoken only by the priests.
Supposed Cathar beliefs: Humans are divine souls trapped in the ordinary physical world, which was created by an imperfect spirit – not necessarily evil, but doing the best it can. The real god is good, distant and not easy to know. To be freed from the material world, a human being has to acquire gnosis, a special secret knowledge. They believed in a form of reincarnation controlled by the imperfect god, a cycle that could be escaped by a ritual cleansing.
Women were prominent and relatively equal in the faith, which was pacifist. They espoused tolerance of other faiths; they rejected the usual Christian rules of marriage, believing more in free love. They ate mostly vegetables and some fish, but no red meat or dairy.
Starting in the 12th century, the Cathars were seen as presenting a direct challenge to Catholic dominance. Fair enough… the first Cathars apparently accused the church of being “full of ravening wolves and hypocrites”. Unsurprisingly, England’s Council of Oxford wiped out the English Cathars; they were also effectively suppressed in Northern France. But the Languedoc nobles in the South of France, where Catholics and Cathars often lived happily side by side and feudalism had not yet taken hold, protected their Cathar neighbours.
Not so much in Carcassonne, from which the resident Cathars were miserably expelled in 1209:
“Kill Them All”
When the city of Béziers refused to hand over its Cathar (Albigensian) population in 1209, Pope Innocent III’s crusaders burnt down the Cathedral of Saint Nazaire and killed everyone in the town, some 20,000 people, Catholic and Cathars alike, some who were taking refuge in the church. “Kill them all”, was the instruction from a representative of the Pope, a French Cistercian monk known as Arnaud Amalric, who added: “God will know his own.”
The army itself was headed by Simon de Montfort, a French nobleman who was no doubt highly motivated by the Pope’s promise that he could keep the land of any heretic he killed.
A comment on the McGlynn’s Kill Them All says that the author reveals the Crusades in a new light – as a bloody territorial conquest in which acts of terror were perpetrated to secure military aims rather than religious ones. Plus ça change, right?
Saint Nazaire Cathedral today
Saint-Nazaire is a splendid cathedral, complete with cloisters. It was built in the 13th century on the site of the one destroyed during the Massacre at Béziers by the Albigensian crusaders, mentioned above.
We generally get to see one church/temple/synagogue per trip, and this was it. Mind you, Roy seems to be softening in his old age; possibly as he contemplates our inevitable mortality: Without any prompting from me, he freely proposed popping into the church at Agde a few days later.
Final Béziers view
B. Side Trip to Arles
With Paul and Salinah able to spend five nights with us at Marseillan, we wanted to take them on a side trip to see a bit more of the South of France. Picturesque Arles with its well-preserved ancient Roman monuments, glorious riverside location and association with Impressionist painter Van Gogh was an obvious choice.
Five-year flashback
Nearly five years ago, we went to Arles with daughter Wendy to celebrate her 40th birthday.
As a treat, we stayed at the boutique five-star Hotel Jules César, famous for being an ex-Lamartine monastery and for its Christian Lacroix décor. We found the décor more quirky than comfortable, and the hotel experience heavy on style but light on substance. In short, we probably wouldn’t choose to stay there again.
Click here for all about that 2019 Arles stay and much more.
Hotel de L’Amphitheatre, Arles
This time, Roy booked rooms at the atmospheric three-star Hôtel de L’Amphitheatre, located in the heart of Arles and named, of course, for the ancient Roman amphitheatre that’s a short stroll down the cobbled lane.
All the rooms are different, because of the antiquity of the building. Everything has been sympathetically restored and furnished in old-world style, while remaining extremely comfortable. I loved the electric shutters that exclude any hint of light; we slept like a dream.
Paul and Salinah had the Belvedere Suite, probably the best room in the house, according to the manager who showed us up the three flights of stairs. (No, there’s no lift; and no, he didn’t offer to carry anyone’s bags. This is France.) Once there, you’ve earned your lovely view over St Trophime church and the rooftops of the old town. Luckily, for one night we had only needed to bring a toothbrush and a change of knickers.
Hotel Spa de Calendal
On the advice of our hotel, we’d parked in the public carpark next to Hotel Jules César, from where it was easy to carry our overnight bags up to to Hotel L’Amphitheatre. We were early, so we stopped for the first (and usually best) coffee of the morning at Hotel Spa de Calendal. Though clearly on the beaten tourist route (the staff spoke English!), it was attractive and well-run. I’d consider staying there another time. (Should there be another time. Qui sait?)
Lunch at Gaudina Restaurant, Arles
Gaudina Restaurant was a lucky find for lunch, especially on a Monday when the majority of restaurants are closed. Again, the lovely couple who served us insisted on speaking English. That just shows how touristy Arles is; you’d be unlikely to find that in Marseillan, for example.
Roy and I had the broufade des mariniers du Rhône d’Arles (served only on Mondays) – an utterly delicious traditional, slow-cooked beef stew with mashed potatoes (€18.50). I licked the plate.
La Gueule du Loup, Arles
Warned to book ahead because so few restaurants are open on a Monday, we found La Gueule du Loup (the mouth of the wolf) to be an easy walk from our hotel; it proved a good choice.
Around Arles
Exhibition: Van Gogh et Les Étoiles
Somehow, without even looking for it, we stumbled upon the Van Gogh et Les Étoiles (Van Gogh and the Stars) exhibition. This huge feat of curation spread over at least three levels was organised by the Van Gogh Foundation in Arles.
I had no idea what to expect, but it looked worthwhile, so we forked out whatever it cost, along with a few euros extra for the excellent audioguide. Someone has described it as a cosmic journey through 165 works by over 76 artists, each work having to do in some way with the stars or the cosmos. It turned out to be an absorbing experience covering multiple artistic genres.
The artists represented include major names such as Edvard Munch and Georgia O’Keeffe. The centrepiece, of course, is Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhône, which will be returned to its home at the Musée D’Orsay in Paris when this exhibition closes on 25 August 2024.
Van Gogh Café
This café on the Place du Forum in Arles was made famous by Van Gogh in his work Café Terrace at Night (1888), also known as Café la Nuit; you know the one. Five years ago, the café was fairly tatty and crappy, yet thronged and expensive nonetheless. This time, it was closed and its terrace was bare, hopefully undergoing much-needed renovation. We joined the tourists lining up to take photos; how could we not?
Snapshots of Arles
Arles Arena (Roman amphitheatre)
I loved these two billboards outside Arles Arena, the Roman amphitheatre. The one on the left shows a painting of the arena by Vincent van Gogh, along with his description of the scene: I saw bullfights in the arena, or rather simulations of fights, as there were numerous bulls but no one was fighting them. The crowd alone was magnificent, big and densely packed on two or three tiers of seating with the effect of the sun and shadow of the immense ring… (my rough translation)
The billboard on the right is advertising an upcoming annual bull-racing event: this was to be its 92nd evocation.
Arles Centre Ville and the River
A Rhône Riverside Fairytale
After a good night’s kip thanks to the electric shutters and my trusty earplugs, I left my Snoozing Beauty husband to it and took myself for a morning jog along the banks of the beautiful Rhône. This is a Goldilocks time of the year in the South of France: neither too hot nor too cold, with cool, crisp mornings melting into sun-drenched noons and balmy afternoons.
The Viking Heimdal sat in solitary splendour at its own mooring berth, just beyond those of the hoi-polloi competition shown in the photos above. A few metres forward of her, I found myself intruding on a travellers/gypsy encampment; so I turned around and headed back to the hotel room just in time to join Roy, Paul and Salinah for breakfast.
Hotel L’Amphitheatre did an excellent breakfast – excellent for the French, anyway – that even included an egg. The French don’t put much store in protein at brekkie, favouring bread, pastries like croissants, jam, fruit, sweetened yoghurt and so forth. So, when I’m offered an egg I’m so overcome with gratitude that I accept whether hungry or not.
(Tip: You seem to get two eggs if you ask for scrambled; only one if you ask for boiled. The sole advantage of the boiled one is a handy shell that allows you to pop it into your handbag for later. What about salt for your boiled egg? Well, I always carry a small canister of pink Himalayan around with me. Like I used to carry miniatures of gin, vodka and tequila in the good old days when my liver functioned really well.)
Next up?
It was difficult to say goodbye to Marseillan and the South of France… especially as we don’t know when we’ll be able to get back to that gorgeous part of the world. Right now, Mr Weaver Bird is concentrating on completing our house in Perth, WA (Click here for my most recent update, just after our benighted builder went bust.) With any luck, I may be motivated to provide a suitable update once our outstanding tiling team has completed that job.
As for upcoming travel, we’ll be flying to Cape Town in a couple of months’ time… I’m looking forward to that, too!
