For our third wedding anniversary, we decided to spend the day immersed in Van Gogh. We set out for Arles and St. Remy de Provence, the former being the place where he lived and shared an apartment with Gaugin before famously losing his ear, and the second being the site of the mental hospital where he spent a very productive year after the incident in Arles. Arles and St. Remy are the places where most of his best-known and most beloved works were painted. Van Gogh painted 187 paintings while in Arles and 142 paintings in the year he was at St. Remy.

We went first to St. Remy to visit the sanitarium at St. Paul de Mausole, which is just outside the center of St. Remy and is still a mental institution, now known as the Van Gogh Institute. Here in a separate part of the complex they have kept and preserved Van Gogh’s room as it was when he stayed here. They have hanging on the walls several of Van Gogh’s letters written to his brother Theo describing his surroundings. Judging from his writings, it actually seems he was very happy there.

Outside of the building that holds Van Gogh’s room are the gardens hung with blown up reproductions of Van Gogh’s paintings created at St. Remy, hung in the spots where they were created. For those who love Van Gogh’s work, as we do, it is almost a sacred experience. Ostensibly his most famous painting (and my personal favorite), Starry Night, was painted at St. Remy.

Once he left St. Remy, he went to live just outside of Paris, near a doctor who was treating him, where he then shot himself in the chest in a field. The initial shot didn’t kill him – he wandered back to the auberge where he was staying and died two days later in his brother Theo’s arms. His last words to his beloved brother were “La tristesse durera toujours” – “The sadness will last forever”. In a sad footnote, Theo, his closest confidant and friend in life, died of what one can only describe as heartbreak six months later. They are now buried side by side just outside of Paris. Van Gogh did not even begin his career as an artist until he was 27. He was 37 years old when he died. Imagine what he could have done had he lived a full life.

We followed up St. Remy with a visit to Arles, where Van Gogh lived with Paul Gaugin and painted many of his best-known works. At the tourist office they have mapped a ‘Van Gogh Route’ that you can follow to visit all of the spots frequented or made famous by Van Gogh. Unfortunately the house he lived in, Maison Jaune or Yellow House, was destroyed during World War II.

We also visited the Roman coliseum at Arles, built in during the first century. Unfortunately we could not go inside as they were busy holding a bullfight, which they do every Wednesday during the month of July. It was not a tempting activity for us.

We returned back to the town of St. Remy for dinner, stopping to visit the birthplace of Nostradamus while we wandered the streets looking for a restaurant.

This little guy left the bar where he was spending his evening to come and say hello to Larry. He then returned to his post and assumed his seat. Hilarious.