Today, it's smaller. Just a few blocks walk from the central square, along a canal, in dappled shade with birds, bees and flowers doing their Spring things all around. Not unpleasant. In structure, it's a long avenue lined with carved stone sarcophagi (now empty). There is a somewhat ruined medieval church at the end which is the beginning of the Arlesian pilgrimage route to Santiago in Spain, so there are clamshells along the way.
Right now you are probably asking yourself - why does the Arlesian route of Compostelle de St. Jacques start here? Well, I have the answer -- Saints. Toward the end of the Roman era Genesius, an accountant or notary or legal civil servant of some kind, refused to write down the names of Christians who were to be persecuted. For this, he was beheaded and, thus, became a saint. Even though he wasn't even a Christian. And he was buried in Les Alyscamps. So was St. Trophime before his church was built and he was relocated.
{I'm pausing here in my own world, to reflect on what the French labor unions of today would do if one of their members were beheaded for refusing to make a list. Pretty amusing to speculate}
I somehow didn't take any pictures there, though the COG took plenty. Here are some from the internet.
And a closer view of sarcophagi.
and the church.
2 comments:
I loved the Alyscamp! We were caught in the rain and took shelter in the church with only the cooing pigeons for company. Good insight about the New Orleans- style graveyard. Hard to imagine any other explanation after seeing the French/Roman ones.
It was magic in the sunshine of early Spring. This was That One Spring day when all the trees suddenly start to turn green, except the ones that are turning pink or white from blossom.
However, I can imagine that in the rain it would have been lovely, too. The dusty, empty church at the end was full of pigeons when we were there, but it seemed less like a shelter than a chilly, very elaborate, garden shed. The rain would have changed that.
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