Some towns reveal themselves slowly. Arles hits you the moment you walk in from the river: a Roman amphitheatre two thousand years old, still standing, still used, in the middle of a working Provencal town. We came down the Rhone for the wine country and the light Van Gogh chased, and stayed for the Romans. If you are cruising the lower Rhone, Arles is the stop where Provence stops being scenery and starts being history you can walk into.
A note on the quay
I will be straight with you, because the pilot books are not always. Mooring at Arles is the weak point of an otherwise wonderful stop. The town quay with slipways and pontoon moorings sits at PK 281.9 on the Rhone, within walking distance of the centre, but availability has been inconsistent over the years and the pontoon arrangement has come and gone. The Rhone runs hard past the town and the quay is exposed to that current and to the wash of commercial traffic.
So plan ahead. Check the latest reports before you commit, have a fallback in mind, and do not assume you can simply roll up and find serviced space the way you can at Avignon. If the river is new to you, the wider picture of locks, current and stopping places is in my guide to the Rhone from Lyon to the Mediterranean, which covers how to plan the legs so you are not forced to stop somewhere unsuitable.
Many cruisers treat Arles as a day visit from a more secure berth, or break the journey here briefly and move on. Whichever you choose, the town is worth the effort it takes to reach it.
The arena: still in use after 2,000 years
The Arenes d'Arles is the headline. Built around 90 AD to seat some 20,000 spectators, the amphitheatre is one of the best-preserved in the Roman world, and unlike most ancient ruins it never fell silent. Through the Middle Ages it became a walled town in its own right, packed with houses; today it has been cleared back to its Roman bones and hosts bullfights and concerts in summer.
Entry is around 11 euros full price, 9 euros reduced, and free for under-18s. If you mean to see more than one monument, the Arles monument pass at roughly 16 to 18 euros bundles the arena with the other major sites and quickly pays for itself. Climb to the upper tiers for the view over the terracotta rooftops to the Rhone and, on a clear day, the Alpilles hills behind.
A Roman theatre and the rest of antiquity
A short walk from the arena, the Theatre Antique is older still, built under Augustus in the first century BC. Far less of it survives, two lone columns nicknamed the deux veuves, the two widows, stand where the stage wall once rose, but it is still used for performances and it has a haunting, half-vanished beauty the intact arena cannot match.
Arles holds more Roman heritage than any town its size has a right to: the cryptoportiques, the underground galleries beneath the old forum; the baths of Constantine; the Alyscamps, the long avenue of ancient tombs that Van Gogh and Gauguin both painted. The collection earned the town a UNESCO World Heritage listing for its Roman and Romanesque monuments. The monument pass is the efficient way to work through them in a day.
On the painter's trail
Arles is also a pilgrimage for anyone who loves Van Gogh, who painted some 300 works here in just over a year, the cafe terrace at night, the yellow house, the drawbridge, the starry Rhone. The actual paintings are scattered in museums around the world, but the Fondation Vincent van Gogh stages strong exhibitions, and the tourist office marks a walking trail to the spots he set up his easel. Standing where he painted the night cafe, in the same hard southern light, is a strange and good feeling.
The gateway to the Camargue
Arles styles itself the capital of the Camargue, and from the water that makes sense, because the great delta of the Rhone begins at the town's gates. The Parc Naturel Regional de Camargue starts about 8 miles south of the town, a flat expanse of lagoons, salt pans, pink flamingos, white horses and the black bulls bred for the arena. Port-Camargue, the huge marina at the western edge of the delta, lies about 57 km away by road.
If you have time and transport, a day into the Camargue is the perfect counterweight to a morning among the Romans: birdlife instead of stonework, horizon instead of monuments. It is one of the strangest and most beautiful landscapes in France, and Arles is the door to it.
Markets, bulls and the Provencal town
Strip away the monuments and Arles is still a wonderful Provencal town, and the part of it I came to love was the ordinary life going on around the Roman stones. The Saturday market is one of the great markets of the south, stretching along the Boulevard des Lices with stalls of olives, tapenade, saucisson, lavender and the rough strong cheeses of the hills. Provision the boat here and you eat well for a week.
The town is bull country too, in the Camargue tradition. The course camarguaise, where nimble men in white snatch rosettes from the horns of a charging bull and nobody is killed, runs in the arena through the season and is a far cry from the Spanish corrida. The Feria d'Arles around Easter fills the streets with bull-running, music and crowds, and if you happen to arrive then you will find the whole town in fancy dress and the quay, such as it is, busier than ever. Plan around the ferias if you want a quieter visit.
A base for the wider region
Arles sits at the hinge of lower Provence, and with a hired car or bike it opens up a good deal more than the town itself. The Alpilles hills behind, with Les Baux perched on its crag and the quarries that inspired more painters; the abbey of Montmajour just outside town; the Roman aqueduct and mills at Barbegal: all are within a short run. Inland lies the lavender country and the hill villages of the Luberon, a different Provence entirely from the watery flatness of the delta.
That range is part of what makes the town worth the effort of a tricky mooring. You are not just visiting a set of ruins, you are at the doorstep of one of the richest corners of the south.
How it fits a Rhone trip
Arles is the last major town on the Rhone before the river fans out into the delta and the Mediterranean. Most people reach it either descending toward the sea or coming up from it, and the natural companion stop is Avignon, just upriver, which I have written up in Avignon and the papal city from the Rhone. Do both and you get the two great river cities of Provence on one stretch of water, Roman antiquity at Arles and papal Gothic at Avignon.
For anyone using the river as part of a longer crossing of France toward the Mediterranean, the full route, locks and all, is laid out in my Rhone from Lyon to the Mediterranean guide.
Numbers to plan around
- Town quay: PK 281.9, walking distance to the centre, availability inconsistent so check ahead.
- Arena: around 11 euros full, 9 euros reduced, free under 18.
- Monument pass: roughly 16 to 18 euros, covers the arena, theatre and more.
- Camargue park: begins about 8 miles south of Arles.
- Port-Camargue marina: about 57 km away by road.
We left Arles convinced it punches far above its weight. The mooring takes planning and a bit of luck, but a town where you can watch a concert in a Roman arena, walk a Van Gogh trail and stand at the edge of the Camargue all in one day does not come along often. Get the boat there however you sensibly can, and give it more than an afternoon.
