Where The Cruise Is Finally Back On Track – Today Is A “Normal” Day
For these last two days of the cruise, things are now officially “back on track” – operating as originally planned. It feels so odd that it’s almost time to go home, considering it feels like we just got here.
Our tour guide for the “easy” group today was Ilodie – she said we could call her “Didi”, because that’s what her little niece called her, and the nickname stuck. I liked her immediately, because she sensed exactly the right snail’s pace walk to take such that most of us kept up with her. It was a long walk from the pier to the beginnings of the old town – at least 20 minutes through a sort-of industrial section of the modern city. I already began to wonder how long it would take for us to walk that distance on the way back.
Our first real stop was the amphitheater – 1/5 the size of the colosseum in Rome, it holds about 20,000 people. It is still in use today.
We sat on the 2000 year old stone seats, while Didi explained about the games: the gladiators were trained athletes that did not fight to the death (normally, anyway), because gladiator schools invested $$$ in their training. The audience gambled on the outcomes of the contests, so it was in everybody’s best interest for the gladiators to stay alive and compete again and again. The “thumbs up/thumbs down” thing is mostly false – Didi said that it might have happened once during the 700 years of gladiator contests. The concept was made popular during the 19th century – in paintings and books, etc. – but it was not true.
The next stop was the theater – it can hold about 10,000. Stones from the theater were used to build/rebuild other building in the city, leaving it in a bit of a mess.
Moving on, our next stop was the Place de la Republic, with the Town Hall and a large church. The church facade showed Jesus with the 4 evangelists (with animal heads) over the front door.
Next stop – Van Gogh! Here’s the courtyard of the “Hotel Dieu” – the hospital where Vincent Van Gogh spent several months.
And here’s a link to the Van Gogh painting of the court yard. https://www.wikiart.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/the-courtyard-of-the-hospital-in-arles-1889
Starting on our way back to the ship, we stopped at the Van Gogh Cafe that modified its facade to resemble the painting:
And a link to the painting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Terrace_at_Night
This was our last stop – we started the long trek back to the ship. It took us probably close to 45 minutes. I would recommend to Viking to provide a shuttle for the “E” group into the town and pick us up to bring us back to the ship. That would shave off 20 minutes in the beginning and at least a half hour at the end. The concern was getting people back to the ship in time for afternoon excursions.
The one difference between the “E” group and the regular groups was a visit to the Roman baths:
This afternoon was ours to do whatever we wanted to do – including taking a nap and writing this blog! This evening is scheduled the disembarkation instructions talk for Sunday, and a live performance of a local performance group. Hard to believe we’re talking about getting off the ship when we just got here!
Tomorrow: Avignon walking tour in the morning, and a second excursions involving aqueducts in the afternoon. I’m not sure when the blog for Day 10 will be posted – our flight on Sunday morning is at 7:00 a.m. (yikes), so we’ll probably need to have our bags outside our door by 4:00 a.m., and us on a bus not much longer after that. And a long transit day.
Maryland Meshugas 