Thursday, June 21, 2012

Promenade des Alyscamps

Les Alyscamps (Arles)

















I was wandering around Europe and made it down to Arles, among other things a Roman city for more than 500 years. Loved it instantly. Knew that painters such as Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin had worked there. Roman ruins, medieval sites, cafés. Walked to the beautiful tree-lined remains of a necropolis, or city of the dead, called Les Alyscamps, a 1700-year-old cemetery -- as in one thousand seven hundred years old. Only hallowed ground remotely like this in the States in terms of antiquity? Indian mound complexes. Nothing else. Mind-blowing. Haunting. Gorgeous. And eerie. Stone sarcophagi. 

While exploring the Église Saint-Honorat des Alyscamps (a medieval church on the grounds), I saw countless bone fragments scattered in corners and swept into little piles mixed with dust. Not. In. Kansas. Anymore. Put me in a Champs-Élysées state of mind, musing about the ways of the living, the way of the dead.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

2 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

And people in France still read books according to today's NYT.

jodi said...

Erik, I would love to to roam where the greats did. Kinda like 'Midnight in Paris'!! Gaugin is a favorite of mine.