arles, france

Our first day trip from Avignon was to Arles. We missed the first train we wanted because we didn't understand the comments on the departure board (in French!) saying that there was no train and we would have to take a bus instead from the neighboring station. We stood around wondering where the heck the train was until I finally realized what was going on, haha. It was alright though because we were able to get some breakfast while we waited for the next one. As it turned out, Arles completely shuts down on Sundays! haha.. It was weird.. the whole place was a ghost town.There were some things open though, but they were pretty much just the tourist things. There were a few different Roman ruins in Arles, including a Roman theater and arena (mini colosseum! hehe). Nowadays the arena is used for bullfights. We also went to Forum Square where the Roman forum once stood. Now all that's there are tons of cafes and restaurants, including the cafe from Van Gogh's painting "Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum" It was really cool to see the actual place he painted one of my favorite paintings!

Unfortunately there wasn't much left for us to do in Arles other than walk around the town for awhile. We caught a late afternoon bus back to Avignon and spent the evening planning out pretty much the rest of our trip! I can't believe there's only just over a month left.. we were able to write down and get together a route for the exact cities we will be in for each remaining day. All that's left now is a couple more days in the French Riviera, then Italy and Greece. Italy is going to be the big one, with just TONS of stuff to see.. It'll be a good finale I guess! I also got set up with Skype (which I should have done a LONG time agoooo) and called home over the internet using the little microphone we bought for the laptop. I talked to my mom and dad for about 45 minutes and it only cost me like 55 cents! I can't believe I didn't get into Skype sooner..