Day 10. Already!?
You all know the program by now… leisurely breakfast coffee blah blah… Out the door at the crack of about 10:30.
The Saint Paul Asylum is about 10 minutes from our house. Originally an Augustine Abbey, the Monestere Saint-Paul Mausole in the 12th century, it was converted to an asylum in the 19th century. Van Gogh checked in on May 8, 1889 after a nasty shaving accident and stayed for a little over a year. He had 2 little rooms with bars on the windows. One for sleeping etc. and one as a studio. Initially he wasn’t allowed to leave the grounds of the facility and so did many paintings from his room looking out the window or from the garden. While he was there he painted some 150 canvases including ‘Irises’ and ‘The Starry Night’. The facility is now called Clinique Van Gogh and is still a functioning mental hospital. They have a major art therapy program and works by the patients are available for sale in the gift shop. There were some pieces that I thought were very interesting and would have been seriously interested in… if they weren’t in the 150-200 euro range.
The whole place was really beautiful and peaceful. There weren’t too many tourists and the ones that were there were more respectful than most places you go. There were a number of people sitting on the large stones lining the main drive sketching and water coloring in their little books. It was a nice change from the usual crush of check it off the list, nose in the guidebook crowds you find in so many places.
We left the car parked at the asylum to walk about ¾ of a kilometer to see the ruins at Glanum. An ancient town dating back to about 700bc. Celts, Gauls, Romans… everyone who was anyone lived in Glanum at some point. It impresses me every time I visit ancient ruins… pretty amazing they were able to do all that massive stone work without diamond saws or backhoes or steel toe work boots.
There were the usual suspects… the temple… the market… the fanciest house on the street, the well. It was a clear blue sky and you could imagine how comfortable a nice airy toga would have felt on a day like this. Then about 1287 school kids showed up. We bounced.
We headed into the center of Saint Remy for lunch at Creperie Lou Planet. A tiny place on the perimeter of the central square with about a dozen tables out front on the sloping cobblestones. It was kind of like eating on a boat as everything on the table wanted to slide to starboard. Jack and I had the “Gallette, Super Complete”. Mushrooms, ham, goat cheese and an egg (sunny side up) wrapped inside a kind of thick crepe thing… it was really quite tasty and made for a good lunch. We wandered around Saint Remy for a while shopping, not shopping, just looking at stuff. Don’t know why but nobody wanted to try the fish nibble pedi place. First encounter with urinals out in the open. Hmmm…
Home for a little rest time before heading back into town for dinner.
Dinner was at La Gousse d’ Ail. It was actually not the place we planned to go to. The place we planned to go to was next door… we walked in the wrong door. Oop. We’ll go to the other place tomorrow.
The waiter was helpful and funny. He had that deadpan with a wink kind of demeanor. The menu had English translations which were helpful and amusing. I wonder if the waiter did the translating…
Dinner started with an Amuse Bouche (amusement for the mouth). A tiny bowl of cold asparagus soup with a bit of buttery cream floating in it. YUM!It was a tough choice between the “Scared smail squids” or the duck. I had the roast duck breast with a little rectangular tower of potato gratin. The menu just said that the dishes come with vegetables of the season and some “starchy food”. The duck was delicious, the beans and asparagus were really good. The house wine, served in a stopper bottle with a lemonade syrup label on it, went down well with the duck and was actually pretty decent. HOW DO THEY DO IT? You can get a damn decent bottle of wine in the grocery here for under 10 euro.
No desert this time… a coffee and a couple of little cookies that came with the bill was perfect. Then, as a parting gift I guess, an espresso cup filled with a surprise. We came to the conclusion that it was basically a cinnamon snow cone! What a nice little palate cleanser. We all left happy and full and that may just be the theme of the trip.
Distracted1 