On the day following
our return from Paris, we held classes as usual in the morning
but took advantage of the beautiful weather that same afternoon
with a trip to the Cormet de Roselend mountain pass.
We stopped near
the pass at a travelers' chapel and admired the lake which fills
the valley beneath it. The lake, formed by a dam, provides hydroelectric
power for the city of Albertville's electric generating station.
After a brief
stop at the pass for the annual snowball fight, we descended
toward Bourg St Maurice and the town of Aime, whose St Martin
basilica is one of the earliest examples of Romanesque architecture
in France.
Built in 1015 over an older church and an even older Roman civil
building, it contains Twelfth-Century frescoes and an impressive
crypt. The basement, which occupies the walls of the original
Roman structure, contains an elaborate lapidarium, with numerous
examples of Roman stelae, gravestones, and carvings.
Thursday and
Friday, we also had morning classes as usual though students
were urged to rest in the afternoons in order to prepare for
the grueling weekend excursion to the South of France.
Saturday morning,
we gathered in the dark on market square to begin the AFA-sponsored
trip. After a stop for breakfast, we headed down the Rhone valley,
with its nuclear power plants looming in the background, and
arrived in Arles at 10am.
Arles, originally
founded by Greek traders in the first millennium BC, became an
important city in the time of Julius Caesar. It is one of the
largest cities of the area called Provence ( from the Latin Provincia
Romana, "Roman province" ) and was, 
for a time, the home of Vincent
Van Gogh who painted many of his best-known canvases there. The
landscape of Provence, with its rows of cypress trees, poplars,
olive trees and fields of wheat, still looks very much as it
did in Van Gogh's time; the Dutch artist's stay in the region
is recalled by numerous plaques, museums and souvenir postcards.
Our first stop
in Arles was the Roman arena, which is still used today for bullfighting.
Considerably modified in the Middle Ages, when the arena itself
became a walled city, it was restored, beginning in the 18th
Century, until it could be once again used for entertainment.
 |
Click on the photo at left to
see a larger version. The students are standing in one of the
access halls of the Roman arena. |
The arena is
the most impressive Roman monument of Arles, though the city
still holds many monuments from the Roman era. We visited the
Roman theater, still in use despite the many missing elements
of the stage area, and the Roman Baths of Constantine, whose
features and details were easily understandable after our visit
to the similar (but much smaller) baths in the Thovey digs on
the outskirts of Faverges.
From the theater,
we visited famed Saint-Trophime, a church from Carolingian times.
The quality of the stone carvings on this church makes it one
of the finest examples of early Romanesque art in France. The
tympanum over the central doors illustrates a very conventional
theme, Christ in majesty, surrounded by symbols of the four evangelists.
After a few hours in Arles, we headed for
the walled city of Aigues-Mortes. Built by Louis IX (St. Louis)
as a new harbor city on the Mediterranean to organize a crusade,
it is now miles inland as the Rhone river delta continues to
expand. Surrounded by some two miles of walls, it is laid out
in a grid pattern, the first city so designed since Roman times.
We had our picnic lunch in a park outside
the main gate of the city; Yvette Millot had, as usual, prepared
a veritable feast, and we relaxed on the lawn, in the sunshine,
as we sampled the various dishes and toasted French host father
Guy Montcoudiol's saint's day.
After lunch, we entered the city
to visit the museum which is located in the old Governor's Mansion.
After the city had lost its use as a harbor city, it became in
the late 17th Century a place of persecution for Huguenots.
After the repeal
of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 (an edict of religious tolerance),
French Protestants were imprisoned in the main 
tower of the city walls; the men
were then shipped off as galley slaves, the women were kept as
prisoners for life; one unfortunate woman spent 38 years in this
unhappy place which is a pilgrimage site for French Protestants
to this day.
These persecutions
are a reminder of the abuses of religious authorities in times
past, when politics and religion served each other's purposes.
The long history of separation of Church and State, a principle
now firmly established in most western democracies, has been
a means to avoid this type of persecution and was directly inspired
by the genocide of the Huguenots in which the city of Aigues-Mortes
played an important role.
After seeing the museum and walking along
the ramparts, we visited the city and sampled ice cream to cool
ourselves a bit in the increasingly hot afternoon.
We then went
to Saintes Maries de la Mer, to our hotel; after we had settled
in, most of the students went to sun themselves on the beach
before dinner.
We ate as a group
in a restaurant in the center of town, sampling the local paella,
a rice dish made with all kinds of shellfish, including shrimp,
langoustine, mussels and squid. After the three-hour dinner,
the group dispersed throughout the city before returning to the
hotel.
On Sunday, we started back north
with a number of stops along the way. Leaving Saintes-Maries
at 10, we proceeded into les Alpilles, limestone outcroppings
of the southern Alps. We stopped at Les Baux de Provence, a village
high atop a rocky spur. Les Baux, named for and by the family
that ruled the area in the Middle Ages, contains many quaint
shops where the students purchased gifts for family and friends
back in the States. Les Baux is also the place where aluminum
ore was first identified ( hence bauxite ).
From the theater we proceeded
to the Triumphal Arch which commemorates the Roman conquest of
the city over 2100 years ago. Though badly eroded by rain over
the millennia, the structure is still imposing and manages to
convey its original message : "We are the Romans, and
we conquer anybody who gets in our way!"
Back on the bus, we headed north
and east to our usual stomping grounds. We stopped one last time
for a picnic snack around 6pm, finally reaching Faverges at 10pm,
twelve hours after leaving Saintes Maries that same morning.
I wish to take this opportunity
to thank the AFA (Association Faverges-Akron) which, for several
months, spent much time and money organizing this excellent excursion.
The AFA's fundraisers covered most of the considerable cost of
the trip, and the tireless and devoted efforts of the AFA's officers,
most notably Yvette Millot, (photo at left) made this trip, --and
the entire Faverges Program's homestay-- possible. The students
and I are extremely grateful for the work, kindness and generosity
of the membership of the AFA and of the people of Faverges.
Monday, classes as usual, starting
at 9 in the morning...
Next report, probably Wednesday.
