The site of Glanum is about three kilometers south of the town of St.-Remy and next door to the monastery where Vincent van Gogh spent much of the last year of his life. The site lies at the end of a north-south valley running through the Alpilles, a low but craggy chain of hills that dominate this part of Provence between Avignon and Arles. Although the configurations of the landscape with its rugged peaks and twisty olive trees evoke some of Van Gogh's best-known paintings, not much of the ancient site as we see it today would have been visible to the artist when he lived there. The site was abandoned at the end of the third century and later mostly covered by alluvial debris washing down from the surrounding hills. The site was never completely lost, however, since two well-known standing monuments--a triumphal arch and a mausoleum--remained visible (though they were covered with scaffolding when we visited). Excavation at the site began in the 1920s, left off in 1928, and resumed after World War II. Work was still going on at the site when we were there. The site has many unusual features: like Vaison, it has a well-preserved domestic quarter with a number of well-appointed private houses--some of them considerably earlier than those at Vaison. There are also remains of a pre-Roman sanctuary tucked into the craggy hills that dominate one end of the site and provide an air of mystery to it. This is one of the few places where the visitor can see how the Roman and pre-Roman elements of the town came together into something new and different. The fact that we were there when spring had just burst into full bloom covering the site with flowering trees made our visit extra special, and a Roman-style restaurant just outside the archaeological site made it possible literally to absorb the ancient flavor of the place.
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