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Les Alyscamps Review

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Les Alyscamps

Phone: 04-90-49-36-74

Category: Archaeological Sites, Cemeteries
Location: Arles

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Fodor's Review:

Though Les Alyscamps, the romantically melancholy Roman cemetery, lie away from the Old Town, it's worth the hike if you're in a reflective mood. Follow the Boulevard des Lices past the Jardin d'Été, the post office, and the gendarmerie (police station), then cut right. This long necropolis amassed the remains of the dead from antiquity to the Middle Ages; bodies were shipped up the Rhône to this prestigious resting place. Greek, Roman, and Christian tombs line the long shady road that was once the entry to Arles—the Aurelian Way—and the ruins of chapels and churches are scattered among the sarcophagi. The finest of these stone coffins were offered as gifts in feudal times, and tombstones were mined for building stone. Thus no one work of surpassing beauty remains, but the ensemble has an aura of eternity.

Cost: EUR 3.50
Open: May-Sept., daily 9-11:30 and 2-5:30; Mar., Apr., and Oct., daily 9-11:30 and 2-5; Nov.-Feb., daily 10-11:30 and 2-4:30

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