Provence Sights

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1. Les Alyscamps

Although the romantically melancholic Roman cemetery lies 1 km (½ mile) southeast of the Old Town, it's worth the hike—certainly van Gogh thought so, as several of his famous canvases prove. This long necropolis amassed the remains of the dead from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Greek, Roman, and Christian tombs line the shady road that was once the main entry to Arles, the Aurelian Way. The finest stone coffins have been plundered over the centuries, thus no single work of surpassing beauty remains here (they're in the Musée Départmental Arles Antiques). Next to the ruins rise the Romanesque tower and ruined church of St-Honorat, where (legend has it) St-Trophime fell to his knees when God spoke to him.