Tuesday, St. Remy en Provence

After the market this morning, we drove over to St. Remy, with our bikes in the back of the car. We followed the very informative plaques up from the town to the St. Paul Hospital where Van Gogh committed himself for most of the last year of his life. 

I'm reading one of the plaques describing Van Gogh's painting sites along the Avenue Marie Gasquet which leads from the town center to the St. Paul de Mausole where Van Gogh stayed.

Here is the map the tourist office supplies with the walking route up to the St. Paul Hospital.

 One of the plaques describing the places where Van Gogh painted once he was well enough to paint outdoors that have been placed along the walking route. Even though Van Gogh was only allowed to paint within a mile of the hospital, he found an amazing range of subjects.

 St. Remy is now a fashionable town filled with second homes and tourists and many of the homes like this one next to the asylum are much more manicured now than they would have been in Van Gogh's time.

But this is a farm two lots down from the asylum built in the vernacular architecture and shows what the buildings would have looked like in Van Gogh's time.

Here is one of the groves next to the asylum with the Alpilles just visible in the background.

    A view of the hospital painted from down in the surrounding fields and gardens.

The cloister and garden just beneath Van Gogh's ward.

The iron bed set up to show what Van Gogh's room in the hospital was like.

Chair in the corner with a leather haversack from the period.

Hospital equipment of the late 19th century set up to give the ward some context in Van Gogh's time.

 Looking back to Van Gogh's ward from the bottom of a field planted in lavender.

Part of the gardens Van Gogh would have seen next to the hospital. Many gardens have walls or windbreaks to shelter them from the mistral, the harsh wind that blows down from the north.

After visiting Van Gogh's hospital, we biked just around St. Remy to see the countryside using this map provided by the tourist office. Just outside of town, the landscape is mostly still agricultural with many farms growing fruit or vegetables for seeds. We followed the route on the top right but got directions from locals down some of the farm paths that run along the extensive irrigation system. The countryside is beautiful with slightly rolling hills and wonderful views of the sharp crests of the Alpilles just south of the city.

Here's what the landscape looked like from our bikes.