A week in Provence is probably one of the most relaxing holidays you can spend with your family. Fields of lavender and sunflowers alternate along the gentle slopes of the hills making the observer feel like in a picture of some impressionist painter. Small villages, narrow cobbled lanes, picturesque little squares, romantic couples sitting at a café, old people playing bowls on the pavement. In short, a postcard Provence.
No, it is not stereotyped, it is just that.
The thirst to discover new places never knows full satisfaction so on a Monday I, Elisa and Manina get up well and we move our car in the direction of Arles, one of the "goodies" of the area. Do you present the famous painting of Van Gogh Le Cafè La nuit? Well that café is located right in Arles.
The heat is so hot in Italy, but the beauty of this city is so much that for a while we forget it.
Umbrellas in a thousand colors welcome us. In front of the Roman theatre we come across a street singer who senses our homeland and pays homage to us with a Bella Ciao.
We descend along the street that runs alongside the arena, where the most important shows of Arles took place, first of all equestrian and taurini. Yes, because here the distance from Spain is really small and love for bullfights exceeds the Pyrenees and reaches here intact.
Here I arrived at the hot spot. Bulls.
After passing the arena we arrive at a square, crowded with people, who celebrate I don't know what they do (but I will discover) in front of the various cafes between aperitifs, glasses of wine and slices of salami.
Instead of the crowd we prefer a small bar, what we call bar of the old, which has nothing but entice the classic tourist to stop, but that exert an irresistible charm on me.
We sat in front of the showcase with some elderly people of the place with their pastis or mint drink and some women. Elisa and I order a couple of glasses of rosé while we eat the baguette bought just before at the boulangerie next to the bar and Manina runs happily as always along the way.
At a certain moment, one of the youngest women is approaching me. Be careful with the child, why the bulls comes - he tells me looking at Manina.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, thank you - I answered, thinking about telling me to pay attention to Manina and the passage of cars.
My evergreen. When I am abroad and do not understand what they are telling me to resolve the situation, I always say yes. I still remember in Bruges when one morning, after a high alcohol evening, the hotel guy asked me in English if I wanted a little bit of food for breakfast.
Not understanding absolutely nothing I found myself soon after having to swallow a firm egg with a salivation completely zero. A memorable scene.
What to do in Arles: horses, bulls and a lot of healthy madness
Back to us, in Arles. The nice and caring girl wasn't t telling me to pay attention to the drivers, but to what would soon be parked along the way in the following order of appearance:
- about ten people on a bicycle with a pedal ride that Chiappucci and Bugno dreamt of.
- an unspecified number of very sweaty people who apparently wandered without goal
- a dozen men and women straddling between the top and gallop, trying to form a sort of circle to escort a group of bulls that are as black as restless.
- a wagon carrying a band
- a vintage car with girls in period dress
This parade, worthy of the Brancaleone Army, passes in front of the bar in no more than 2.00pm. Not even the time to recover from this rush of adrenaline that we see rebellious duetors retrace the way, fleeing, and behind the whole parade screaming to chase them apart from the gang and pulzelle in period dress. One of the knights goes to bump into a Citroën van parked in front of the boboulangerie while his horse tried to bite the shoulder of the knight at his side. All this is a couple of metres away from us. What's more, at a certain moment, unknowing motorists arrive to make the scenario even more chaotic. Imagine our face. Elisa tries to shoot the scene with the Ipad. Very bad result.
On the exit of the boulangerie (which you never know), with Manina in my arms I try to capture some moments of this villager madness. Mission succeeds in some way. Not even a minute later, we came back to the knights who, in general jubilation, brought the rebel bulls back to order.From the stories of the elders we have discovered that this moment of popular "jubilation" is the way in which the bulls are escorted towards the arena during the day preceding one of the shows.