First full day in Arles

• We were very tired, so we slept in.
• We had breakfast at a bar in a hotel. (Bars are another place to get coffee in France and Italy, in addition to cafes.) The Bar Américain was clearly a hangout place, and we were just as clearly out of place, though we didn't feel uncomfortable. There were two sets of men playing cards inside (we sat outside at a table on the sidewalk), one a four handed game with one open hand, using a (at least) 52 card deck — possibly bridge; the other a two handed game with counters/chips. We never got a chance to ask what the games were. There was a lot of joking around between the staff, the guys hanging out, and guys stopping in. Sometimes it was (probably) in Provençal, the local language, related to, but different from, French. It reminded C of the barbershop he goes to in its atmosphere.
• L got her first hat for protection against the sun at her "favorite tourist shop" as C put it. It was on our regular path, and it seemed to be always open, the opposite of the tourist information at the train station.
• We visited Les Arènes — very interesting to compare with the amphitheatre in Verona.
• L looked at supposedly traditional Povençal vests, but the clerk was Asian and the vests said Thai silk. Still possible, but she passed.
• Lunch at a good Moroccan restaurant. Their sign says Moroccan and Provençal cuisine, but we didn't see any Provençal cuisine on the menu. We recommended (in Italian) our dishes to an older Italian couple who didn't speak much French, but they didn't take our suggestions. Hmph.
• On to the Aniquity Museum. It's outside the city walls, by the ruins of the Roman Circus (=horse racing stadium) not near anything else, and the free tourist shuttle doesn't go there. They need a cafe — a perfect business opportunity. The museum itself isn't bad, with interesting models.
• Parched and tired, we trudged back into town to the Tourist Information (not the one at the train station which was never open) to get information about the festival on Tuesday.
• We stopped at a cafe to recuperate. It was good to sit down, so the long wait to get served wasn't as bad as it could have been, though we did run the risk of shriveling up from dehydration. The waiter got our drinks backwards, assuming the non-alcoholic one went to the woman.
• We stopped in the Place de la République to see the obelisk (a little sad) and the facade of St. Trophime church, which is a masterpiece of medieval southern France. It was OK, but we prefer Roman to Romanesque.
• There were a lot of Italian tourists in town, and several small groups at the restaurant where we had dinner. Each time another group came in, they'd start talking with the ones that were already there. It was striking, since none of the North Americans talked with each other. The restaurant was slammed (as our friend D. likes to say), and the poor waitress was pretty stressed. She said that the owner kept letting people in, "no limit." And when she brought us the wrong bill she said that she'd "lost the pedal" ("J'ai perdu la pédale" = I've lost it). She comped the espressos then moved the cups to the other table so the owner wouldn't see them. We gave her a nice tip (which you don't do that often in France).