TIMES SQUARE: The artistic crowd get all excited about the light in Provence, but when it comes to French illumination Brendan Glacken is more inclined to appreciate the neon glare from an all-night brasserie. You could spend a long time looking for that in Provence. We know because we did. Six journo characters in search of some play.
Four nights in Provence in late May doesn't allow for a Peter Mayle-like analysis, but we still cover quite a bit of ground, much of it marshy, since our visit focuses on the Camargue. Five p.m. in the Renaissance village of Les Baux de Provence and we hit the ground running - towards the hotel swimming-pool.
But there is work to do before dinner. Rising high above us are the ruins of a medieval chateau. We like the massive reconstructed battering ram and the medieval catapults, in particular the trebuchet, the biggest of all siege warfare engines, capable of hurling up to 100kg of rocks up to 200 metres.
Our hotel is the rather swish La Riboto de Taven, which has a mere half-dozen rooms, two of them spectacularly cut into the cliff face. Even more spectacular is the €10 charged that night for a small glass of wine, and another €10 for a hopelessly amateur gin and tonic.
Next morning we hit the road for Arles, stopping en route at the Abbey of Montmajour, a Benedictine abbey in the 10th century and now a national monument. It is a place of austere beauty and classical restraint, an absolute gem for anyone who can tell their transept from their nave.
Arles, where we arrive in mid-afternoon, has all the main monuments of a Roman city, including a well-preserved coliseum which in its heyday accommodated 20,000 people
. It's good to sit up there in the sun and consider the bloody history of the place. And if you need to cool off, as we do, the crypts of the ancient Roman forum are nearby, authentically spooky and nearly large enough to get lost in.
In some ways, modern Arles is the creation of van Gogh. Already unhinged, Vincent arrived here in 1888 and painted some 200 canvases in little more than a year. It is oddly haunting to turn a corner into the Rue Pietonn and see the Cafe Le Soir still (well nearly) as he painted it (and described so vividly in a letter to the brother).
It's now the Cafe La Nuit/Van Gogh, but otherwise there is little self-consciousness about the place, though it sits among tourist hurly-burly. A short walk then takes us to the garden of what used to be the mental asylum, where Vincent was a frequent visitor, and where he painted Le Jardin de la Maison de Santé.
Next morning the Camargue "proper" is our destination. We are looking forward to riding the famous white horses, our hair blowing in the wind, at one with equine grace and all that. But it's pouring rain. So we settle for a trip in our trusty mini-bus across the Domaine de la Palissade in Salin de Giraud. None of us is exactly a flora-fauna expert: from the "hide" I excitedly train the telescope on what I believe is the rare Chestnut-Crested Lesser Warbler. It turns out to be the head of one of my journalistic colleagues. However, we see flamingoes galore, and a kite or two, and a bunch of white horses who gallop up to greet us like long-lost friends, all nuzzly-cuddly.
After a fishy lunch in Gageron, the afternoon sees us on the coast at Les Saintes de la Mer, the self-styled capital of the Camargue, where we take a boat trip up the "Petit Rhone". A boat trip is just a boat trip, but there are some idyllic-looking hideaway cottages with hideaway boats along these peaceful river banks. It seems that even people who have Got Away From It All (and this is about as far south as you can go in France) still need to get further away.
Our visit to the town coincides with the May pilgrimage, for which thousands of gypsies have arrived from all over Europe, effectively taking over the town. In a hotel bar that night we watch a gold-glamorous crowd of them striking up rousing guitar-accompanied songs and hitting the dance floor with style.
When the gypsies have gone, we Irish discover to our shame that we are the last to leave. Our hotel is four miles away, and the barman offers us a lift. It's only a pick-up truck but what the hell, the sky is clear. Naturally, when we arrive, the hotel is locked and in darkness. After all this is Provence, and it is almost one o'clock in the morning.
bglacken@irish-times.ie