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This is the little fishing village of Niolon in Provence. We're in fleeces, but most days we wore shorts. Our apartment is on the hillside behind us, where we spent a lot of the week sitting on the balcony in the sun, reading, eating fresh seafood and drinking local wine from a nearby vineyard.
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Finally, I got to Arles, where Vincent van Gogh lived for 15 months.
(I'm on a quest to check out all the places he lived.)
There's a great walking tour, with plaques marking the spots where he sat to paint. This is the site of his house (bombed in 1944), "The Yellow House."
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This is the actual café from his painting, "Café at Night."
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Cool, or what?
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This is the bridge from his painting, "The Drawbridge."
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That's me on the bridge!
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He ended up in this hospital - the garden shows up in many of his paintings. Something new we learned: when he cut off his earlobe and gave it to the friend/prostitute, he may have had in mind the local tradition of matadors giving the ear of the bull to their girlfriends.
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On to Saint Rémy, where he checked himself into St. Paul's cloister-asylum, lived for a year, and produced some of his greatest works. What a precious, calm, beautiful place - this was our favorite day.
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The olive trees from "The Olive Grove."
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The back of the cloister and the window of Vincent's room on the second floor. That's an easel in the rows of lavender - a group of American artists had come all the way to paint Vincent's vistas.
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Vincent's room.
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Vincent's window.
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Ron's favorite place - the courtyard next to the chapel. It shows up in many paintings that Vincent made of the cloister gardens.
A perfect trip!
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