Art But No Artists

The next 3 days (18, 19 and 20 September) were quite different from the previous 3 days in the mountains. The countryside became flatter. I sauntered through rolling, agricultural fields and endless woods of beech, oak and pine. It was all very pleasant. From time to time I picked up the kind of ideal country path that all walkers dream about (well, this walker does anyway):

I kept running into 2 retired couples (Alain and Josie, Yvon and Yvonne) from Lyon who were walking the Way in weekly stages year on year. They used a complicated system which involved leaving a car at a particular location somewhere along the day's route, sometimes walking as couples and sometimes as a group, and, bizarrely, sometimes backtracking over a section of the same route twice. I never did quite understand the logistics. But they seemed perfectly happy with it. They showed great kindness to me, the Solitary Walker - several times insisting I shared a meal with them. On this occasion it's lunch, and we're eating their home-grown salad and home-made vinaigrette, apples from their own apple tree, and raw mushrooms (cèpes, girolles and chanterelles) they'd gathered that day in the woods and had splashed with the vinaigrette:

I stayed in medieval La-Salvetat-sur-Agoût the 1st night, the next night in a rather squalid little gîte beneath the post office in Anglès, and finally in the picturesque artists' village of Boissezon. This was my 1st sight of Boissezon, village d'artistes:

Climbing the hill through the old part of the village up to the church, I passed tiny galleries and art exhibitions. All were open but of artists there was no sign. Perhaps they were all at the café-bar drinking absinthe? Some of the brightly painted doors to their bohemian homes stood ajar and little hand-written notices invited free entry. I stepped into one of these colourful houses. Artworks covered the walls from floor to ceiling, but there was only a cat and some seductive New Age music to greet me...

Night Café

I left London's Victoria Coach Station at 3.30 pm on Friday 5 September. Direction: the Channel Tunnel and France. After changing coaches in Lyon I arrived in Avignon late the next morning. A short train journey took me to Arles, the lowest bridging point of the river Rhône. Pilgrims from Italy and from central and eastern Europe have congregated here for centuries before commencing the long trek westwards to Compostela.

Arles used to be an important Roman city, and many Roman antiquities still remain - including the baths and the amphitheatre. Before the Romans Arles had been occupied by the Greeks. I even spotted some Greek inscriptions on some of the stone sarcophagi in the necropolis of Les Alyscamps. This is Van Gogh's impression of Les Alyscamps:

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) came to Arles in February 1888 and lived there in the Yellow House - then in the mental hospital at nearby Saint-Rémy - for scarcely more than 2 years. On arrival he was immediately entranced by the Provençal light and landscape, and in a feverish bout of activity produced around 300 paintings and drawings - including many of those which later became his most famous. Café Terrace At Night, for example. You can still see this café today. In fact I walked right past it. He wrote of this painting: In my picture of the 'Night Café' I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. Yes, absinthe was the downfall of many an artist of the time...

I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. VAN GOGH

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners. VAN GOGH

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it. VAN GOGH