Friday 23rd July.
Today is our big tourist day - we’re taking Eric and Ann to Arles and we are going to see what the provenencals call the Bull races. No slaughter and dead carcasses - just young blokes (Razoulets) plucking strings and rosettes from the bulls ears for points and money. I’m excited - but there’s a lot to see first.
Tony takes us to Beaucaire for lunch….it’s a pretty little town at the mouth of the Rhone and we found it by accident on our last trip. There's a wonderful statue of a rampaging bull - for all of the Camargue is bullfighting country. Wild and beautiful in the country....the towns provide welcome contrast.
Stopping alongside the river we find an auberge. We have the plat du jour menu….steak and chips….and meet the lovely owners of the bar who worked for years in London - so not much chance to try our rusty French. We walk along the side of the river and there is the spectacular long barge with its deck garden in flower and shade sails to lounge under. It was moored in the same place five years ago and I doubt that it has moved in all that time. Somehow that is uplifting, as if an indication that we will return in another five years to check her out.
WE’re relying on the GPS navman to direct us. Tony has named “the voice” fussy Felicity…. A snooty private school tosser! Mostly the navman is spot on, but every now and again she goes berserk and takes us round in circles ….still we get to see Remoulins and St Remy de Provence ( very pretty but touristy) and a few other villages we didn’t expect to. We head up to Les Baux…. A huge rock outcrop ( it’s where the name bauxite comes from) with a medieval fort and village on the plateau. It is supposed to be sensational but we drive the car as far as we can and……there are over a hundred steps to climb. There’s no way, even hanging on to Tony, that I can make it - and A and E seem equally daunted by the prospect. So we turn around and go back. On to Arles.
We loved Arles so much 5 years ago, and it has only lost a little of its appeal to our love affair with Uzes. To go into the old city and up the windy streets to be confronted by the Arena is nothing short of amazing. To think we are going to be sitting in that same arena where gladiators fought 2,000 years ago is simply mind blowing. Anne and I buy tablecloths and other provencal goodies and the guys walk ahead so as not to be dragged into shops….as guys do. They queue for the tickets for the bull races….8 Euros each and Tony takes them to the ancient amphitheatre while I beg off and sit at the café we frequented 5 years ago and drink water and test my sugars which have been so good but are now going haywire.
At 5 o’clock a very good local band starts to play and we all pile into the arena and find seats in the shade. The late afternoon sun is blisteringly hot and there are some English tourists ( idiots?) who have chosen to take off their shirts and sit in full sun. Young and stupid….. I think it’s a pre-requisite for English boys. By the time we leave they are looking very much like lobsters!
And so the Bull races begin. The Razoulets are young and dressed all in white. They parade much as the matadors would and are greeted by cheers. The big heavy gates are drawn aside and in comes the bull. It looks fierce and paws the ground, but then 12 youths start shouting at it and running backwards and forwards. Oh dear. The bull doesn’t want to play. It’s bewildered. It makes some half hearted attempts to charge and the razoulets do their thing….. plucking strings from its horns. They are remarkably athletic and leap over the arena walls and cling to the sides of the audience barricades. Spectacular….for about five minutes. The bull jumps out of the ring and runs around in circles in the outer ring. They prod it and taunt it, but each time they get it back in the ring it jumps out again, sometimes catching its back legs. Anne can’t bear to see it tormented and she quickly leaves. The bull is eventually taken out and replaced with one apparently more willing to make mincemeat out of french youths. Ultimately though, the whole spectacle is a one trick pony and by interval we have had more than enough.
A &E don’t appear to be Van Gogh fans so we skip the art history of Arles which had so dazzled Bernie and instead we make our way back to Uzes. The square is full of Friday night tourists and locals….little children, old people walking their dogs, slightly mangy looking cats. You name it….. It’s all there. The accordion players are hard at work…it seems La Vie en Rose is the only song they know…..but it’s summer in France. Who needs more?
No comments:
Post a Comment