Day 39 - Friday 20th October - Cruise

Last day on the ship today. Last excursion and it was nice to know we weren't leaving until 9am. Half an hour makes a lot of difference. Originally we had chosen to visit another picturesque hilltop village with uneven cobblestones but my foot had had enough!  So instead we went to Arles, a city on the Rhône River in Provence, which is the area we're in now. Arles was also a provincial capital of Ancient Rome so not only did we walk into another picturesque town but a town full of Roman ruins which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We walked into the town with our guide and within a couple of minutes of walking we could see, looming before us, the Arles Amphitheatre built in 90 AD! Much smaller than Rome's Colosseum and this one is mostly intact and it's white like the Arena in Pola. What a beautiful and unusual structure to see in a pretty town in the south of France. It used to hold 20,000 spectators who watched chariot races and gladiator battles. These days it holds 12,000 and they watch bullfighting, plays and concerts. Who knew that bullfighting was such a big thing in southern France. We went inside the amphitheatre with our guide and sat on the original marble tiers while we listened to our guide. Fabulous! The narrow streets of Arles wind their way between these ancient buildings which makes this little town more interesting than others we've seen. We saw the Roman Theatre, with the seating mostly intact but the stage has only a few columns still standing, and passed by other ruins as we walked along the windy, but flat streets. Our guide pointed out 2 columns incorporated into the facade of a building many, many years ago. These columns are all that remain of the Roman Forum. Arles is also famous because Van Gough fell in love with Provence and lived in Arles for 16 months and produced 200 paintings and 150 drawings in his time there. Around the town there are information stations positioned to show the very spot where he painted the  most famous  of the paintings he produced in Arles, with a picture of the painting and a bit of background for it. What a wonderful way to showcase certain spots. So we made our way along the streets to the hospital where Van Gough spent time after he chopped part of his ear off, before going to the asylum in St-Rémy-de-Provence. Among the way we saw the place he painted the Yellow Cafe and there was the cafe, still standing. We saw the spot he painted Starry Night over The Rhône River and where his Yellow House was and the spot where it was painted from. At the hospital we saw the cloisters and garden as he had painted it because it has been restored and painted in the colours it was at the time he was there and the garden's been planted as it was. Such a great experience to see all this. We then had free time so we strolled around a little then stopped to get what would probably be our last French crepe. The fellow asked us where we were from, even though John had spoken to him in French, and when we said Australia he told us he had family in Perth and knew a lot about Australia. So that's two French people we've met in our weeks in France who have family in Perth. We ate our delicious crepe sitting on the edge of the fountain in the main square and them followed our guide back to the bus. It was nice to have only a 30 minute drive back . When we got back we went down for lunch and then I was keen to get stuck into the packing so that we then could properly relax for the last little bit of our trip. The Cruise Director made an announcement to say that rather than just stay tied up at Tarascon, he would cruise us down to Arles and back again which would take all afternoon. So John very wisely stayed on the balcony and out of my way while I stuffed everything we had come with and all that we'd acquired along the way very well into our cases. We were very pleased that they each only weighed less than 22 kgs. To celebrate we opened the bottle of wine from our room bar (all included) and enjoyed it on our balcony with some cheese we'd brought back with us after lunch for this very moment. We enjoyed the lovely scenery as we cruised along and when we'd finished we changed and went to the lounge for coffee and then a few pre-dinner drinks before the farewell drinks and final next-morning instructions. We thoroughly enjoyed our last dinner on board knowing it would be our last decent meal for a while and then danced the rest of the night away with regular rests. I decided not to worry about my foot too much because I knew I wouldn't be doing any dancing and not much walking over the next many hours. We had a room credit as an extra bonus and I'd used some for my facial and some washing but we still had some to use up so we decided to use it on some top shelf Grappa which we both thoroughly enjoyed.