The drive out on Saturday morning was pretty uneventful, other than encountering an Asterix van at a rest stop. The van was decorated with Asterix comic book covers, and had further Asterix decorations in the windows. The two men from the van even had viking horn hats with braids. And asked us to take their picture (with their camera). G's theory is that they were recreating Asterix & co's voyages.
We arrived at G's parents' house in time for lunch, then headed out. Since the weather was good, and the Mistral was forecasted for the next day, we went out to Pont du Gau that afternoon. There were fewer birds overall than on some visits, and fewer species of waterbirds (plenty of mallard ducks, herons, egrets and some gulls, but not as many avocets and stilts, not many other ducks, very few grebes, no storks, no ibis).
The permanent resident collection (injured birds unable to be released back into the wild) seemed to be smaller than on previous visits - the storks weren't out, there were fewer raptors - an Egyptian vulture, a black kite, a couple eagle-owls, a hawk or two, but not much else. We did see a couple muskrats and there were plenty of yellow water irises, though.
However, there were flocks of flamingos (and flocks of photographers) as usual - perhaps not as numerous as some visits, but nice and colorful as they splashed around taking baths, stretched, beat their wings, and courted (the flamingos, not the photographers). I kind of want to knit a flamingo shawl now.
The bird in the picture below was "dancing" - I think he was doing pretty much what chickens do - scratching at the dirt, stirring up tasty morsels, and then dipping his head down underwater to eat. It looked like he was dancing - legs going up and down like a ballerina at various tempi, slowly turning in a circle as he looked for the tastiest bits.
There weren't a lot of flamingos in the air, but we did see one pair that swung right past us.
(I got a heavily cropped picture).
The signs indicated that breeding season is in April, and egg incubation lasts about six weeks, so we'll have to try to get back in a couple months to see baby flamingos.
We decided to head back to Arles at about 5pm and visit the Fondation Vincent van Gogh. It turns out that the Foundation only houses a single van Gogh work, on loan from a museum in the Netherlands, and changed out once a year. The rest of the museum features various contemporary artists; the goal of the foundation is to promote artistic and cultural activities in and around Arles, sort of as an homage to van Gogh, rather than directly displaying his work. A bit disappointing in some ways, but there were some interesting things on display. I think the section I enjoyed the most was the work of Giorgio Griffa - I was rather taken by his use of clean pastel colors, which set me to thinking about color combinations I could use in my knitting.
The Fondation is now housed in a beautifully renovated hotel particulier (a large townhouse), and the view from the roof terrace was quite nice. The light was doing interesting things in the distance - I think it was raining, way off in the center of the photo above, and the light was slanting down at an angle, creating an interesting effect.
Since it was still light out, we took a walk around town and of course took a look at the Roman coliseum and theater.
On Sunday, we went to the "blue museum." The special exhibit explored the relationship between the Rhone river (and a now non-existent branch, the Rhone d'Ulmet) and how it has changed over history and how that affected human habitation in the region, using archeology.
There was also a new permanent exhibit since the last time I'd visited, a few years ago - a boat. A big boat. On my last visit, the special exhibit had been items that had been brought up out of the Rhone at the site of the Roman Arlesian port. I hadn't realized that they'd also excavated a sunken river barge as well - and it has been restored and put on display, along with a selection of the items found nearby. There was an absolutely fascinating video talking about the process of bringing the boat up out of the water, 2000 years after it had sunk. It makes sense now that it's been pointed out to me, but a waterlogged wooden boat is heavy, and the water has in some ways become part of the structure of the boat after all that time. The archeologists had to figure out how to lift it up out of the water without irreparable damage (this involved divers cutting the boat into sections, as well as special frames and cranes built for the purpose), keeping the wood wet until it could be dried in controlled conditions, and special treatments to the wood to preserve it (the upshot of which is that a special lab in Grenoble replaced the water with a special resin).
This little diorama was one I found particularly interesting. In the Roman times, there was one bridge connecting the two banks of the Rhone in Arles - a bridge with built stone on either end, but the main body of the bridge was wood, set upon anchored boats. Check out the rowed tugboat pulling the trading vessel through the drawbridge at the juncture of the stone and wooden sections of the bridge!
There was also a diorama showing the interior of one of this type of trading boat (vs the longer, shallower barge that was the big boat on display). There were sections in the bow and stern, under the decks, for storage of the smaller amphorae - jars that would be a heavy armful, but that you could carry. And then there was a large central section packed full of bigger amphorae... the bottom of the broken section came almost to my chest! I didn't see anywhere that they mentioned how these giant jars were transported between boat and shore...
And of course, no visit to G's parents is complete without at least a quick look around the garden!
This peony was huge. And gorgeous. And huge.
And of course my favorites were the irises. There were a lot still in bud... we'll have to go back soon to see their full glory.
It's been a while since we visited Arles and did much more than visit the farmer's market, so I'm glad that we managed to put this little trip together and do as much as we did.
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