Les Baux/ Arles

les baux has a medieval castle made out of the naturally occurring limestone. it had an incredible view form up top! after that we made our way to arles. arles is most famous by van gogh's many paintings of the area. the second to the last picture shows van gogh's painting of the hospital he was interned into after he cut off his ear. nowadays that place has cafes and other tourist shops in it. as seen in van gogh's picture, there is a fountain in the middle. after a long hot day, my friend erin (last picture) proposed we dunk our heads into that fountain. last picture shows the outcome. we are both art historians, so we really only wanted to be baptized in the waters of art history. we got into much trouble for it. i was told that french culture has protocols, and when those protocols are broken one is given hell for it. i was told the shopkeepers were highly upset and even threatened they could have called the police for disruptive behavior... but i did have fun. :)