Arles is an excellent little French town, and it was a great introduction to France!
I went to Arles based mainly on a one-liner in Rick Steve’s Europe through the backdoor book, “Take a train to Arles” I think is all it said. Good enough for me! I researched it online a bit, and it looked like a neat place – roman ruins throughout a little french villa, and it’s where Van Gogh lived for a while in the later part of his life. That’s exactly what it is, and it’s quite interesting.
I arrived a bit later in the evening due to my not catching an early train from Montpellier, and I didn’t have a map – so initially I went down what seemed like a bit of a bad road (and I later realized it went in the opposite direction I wanted). Some kids asked me for money, but that’s all and I soon walked back and found my way to the city center, where I found a hotel. There were two hotels open when I arrived, one for 55€/night, and another that seemed more like just a bar – I went in to the bar looking one, told them I was interested in a room – and I was quickly given a key and told the price of 32€/night – I looked at the room, and it was reasonable enough (especially for me – I don’t need anything fancy on this trip) so I went with it. It was called “Hotel Paris / Bar Americaine”. There were no Americans there, but there were a lot of Frenchmen drinking the anise scented absinthe – hopefully they don’t go as insane as Van Gogh!
The city center is fairly small, and very walkable. I had breakfast at a great little place where it looked like a mother, father, and their son where working – they were very nice and made me feel like I knew how to speak French 
There’s several points of interest to check out in Arles, a roman theatre from the first century B.C., a large roman amphitheater from 90 A.D., Van Gogh’s hospital where he did many of his paintings, the underground catacombs called the “Cryptoportico”, and many other things that I didn’t make it to, like Van Gogh’s bridge, which I would have liked to see – but it’s a bit far out from the city center.
Overall I very much liked Arles, it was a small town, with lots of friendly people and neat things to see. And excellent food! Wonderful pastries, bread, cheese, and coffee.
Le Rhône - The river that runs through Arles
View the map of my photos in Arles!
