Arles

Introducing Arles

If Arles’ winding streets, stone squares and colourful houses baking in the sun seem familiar, it’s probably because they feature in Vincent Van Gogh’s prolific outpouring of art.

Long before Van Gogh captured on canvas this spot on the Grand Rhône River, just south of where the Petit Rhône diverges, the Romans had already been turned on to its charms. (Even before that, Arles was a Celtic settlement in the Bronze Age, before becoming a Greek colony known to the Romans as Arelate.)

In 49 BC, Arles’ prosperity and political standing rose meteorically when it backed a winner in Julius Caesar (who would never meet defeat in his entire career). After Caesar seized and plundered Marseille, which had supported his rival Pompey the Great, Arles eclipsed Marseille as the region’s major port. Within a century and a half, it boasted a 12, 000-seat theatre and a 20, 000-seat amphitheatre to entertain its citizens with gruesome gladiatorial spectacles and chariot races. Still impressively intact, the two structures now stage events including corrida (bullfighting), which sends the town into fever-pitched excitement when the season starts with fanfare each spring.

Last updated: Mar 2, 2009