Author: Ed Hovorka

Tomorrow we take the TGV to our final city, Paris, a 4 hour ride. I can’t believe it’s been three weeks already. The last couple of days I have had thoughts of home. It’s a struggle to keep translating things, and worrying if you’ve translated the cancelled train message correctly. It’s also frustrating not understanding a word anyone says, except for some form of yes, no, please, thank you. Everyone speaks a little English, most people speak it fluently. More words than we know in their language at least

Tonight on our way to dinner we got rained on. We have seen rain on travel days from the airports or from trains, but other than a couple of drops in London and a light sprinkle on our way to dinner in Bacharach, we’ve had great weather. Last night was a heavy downpour, the thunder woke us up, but we were dry in Orange. Then it started pouring right before we left for dinner, but stopped by the time we went back to the hotel.

After we got back to Arles, we stopped at the Musée Departemental Arles Antique. It had a model of what the standard theater looked like. (picture)

This morning we went to the Theatre Antique d’Orange (aka old Roman theater). Apparently it’s a Unesco world heritage sight. It’s the only theater with the back wall still standing in Europe. There are two others (Turkey, Syria). There’s a similar theater in Arles and it’s a total wreck. It’s 2000 years old and seats 10,000. Not nearly as impressive as Pont du Gard. (three pictures)

The back wall from the outside

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They had a statue of the Emperor in the top center position. The statue heads were replaceable for when the Emperor changed.

My overall impression of Arles is that it is a dump. Stay in Avignon if you come this way.