coliseum

As promised, here’s Part 2 of my travelogue documenting my recent trek through Southern France. Home base: The Medieval walled city of Avignon, southern tip of the Côte du Rhône. Never mind for the present that I promised this post first thing Saturday and here it is Sunday night. As I always say, why do tomorrow what you can put off until the day after?

Our story takes up in Arles, where in 1888 either Gauguin or Van Gogh himself did the lacerating of the latter’s ear. But that wasn’t the only battle that took place in Arles. Back in Roman times, the town’s coliseum hosted a variety of blood sports, including gladiator matches and public dispositions of the criminal class. Alas, the only blood you’ll see there today is that of da bulls. As in Bull Fighting. Although I won’t speak to the morality of such “sport”--although I must say, one killing seems much the same as another to me, and any preference toward the sterile slaughter of steak cows strikes me as little more than bovine sexism--I like the idea that there’s at least a remote chance that the human Matador might take the fall. Meanwhile, here’s a stitched version of the inside of the Arles’ Coliseum, whose rocks have survived 2,000 years of wear.

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