The Smooth Guide The Long Luxurious weekend, from How To Spend It, Weekend FT, March, 2003.

Christian Lacroix's Arles

The French couturier tells Avril Groom how he, like Van Gogh before him, fell under his home city's unbreakable spell.

"I would like to walk with you through Arles to share the memories of my childhood, teenage years and the recent past. As in Venice or any other great city of sentimental attraction, the time of the day to discover such a beautiful yet fragile location is important. The light is best very early in the morning or late afternoon and spring or autumn is more subtle - summer is too hot and crowded and the strong sun flattens everything.

Rooftops and the Rhone beyond.

 If you fly into Nimes (10 minutes away) or Marseilles (30 minutes), you arrive via the ugly 1960s bridge so you avoid it spoiling the landscape, and suddenly you discover, crossing the Rhone the preserved roof line with all its bell towers. If you arrive from the north and forget the modern suburbs you have almost the same impression Van Gogh had. One good way to explore the city is to follow the locations of his paintings (there is a tourist leaflet to help you) - most have not change, which is a miracle as bombing in the second world war destroyed more than a third of the city, but mainly round railways and bridges, sparing the historic centre. Sadly, the little Yellow House disappeared in the Allied bombing because it was close to the       station. But the next block and the bridge in the painting are still there.

A bridge painted by Van Gogh

      Another less known painting amazes me - "Le Pont de Trinquetaille", which was sold at auction a few years ago. It shows the steps at the end of the former bridge over the Rhone with a woman walking by in Arlesian costume. It might have been my great-grand-mother, who passed this place every day, as I did as a child going to kindergarten. So take a book on Van Gogh in his period period with you and follow it day and night - no one else expressed so well the dramatic starry sky along the river.

      One of my favourite walks goes from Place Lamartine, where Van Gogh lived, to La Roquette, the gypsy area and the quarter for seafarers and fishermen ever since the Renaissance. Lose your way a bit in the narrow streets until you find my favourite, the Rue Parade, which turns on itself seven times       between the little houses and the high garden walls of the 18th-century hotels particuliers. Find the Muse de l'Arles Antique with its amazing Roman art treasures. When I was a child many of them were piled up in churches that had been turned into museums during the Revolution. I loved the idea of these       pagan masterpieces in baroque or Gothic Christian places. The museum is modern, 1980s Beaubourg style, and the churches are empty now and open less often because of vandalism, though the main one, St Trophime, is always open.

Café Culture

      In the upper part of the town, l'Hauture, you can walk between the Roman arena and amphitheatre, both restored and in active use. You also can't miss Place de la République and Place du Forum, both lively spots. The cafés I went to as a teenager, like Malarte and La Bourse, are banal now - the Place du Forum is trendier. The best thing is to ignore the modern       frontages and look at the façades of the upper floors where nothing has changed for centuries.

The Musee Reattu.

      There are two other important museums. The Museon Arlaten was created by the Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral with the money from his Nobel prize - it hasn't changed since I went there every Thursday (a day off school in the 1950`s to fill my eyes and mind with inspiration I still use today: costumes, craft, canvas, furniture, ceramics, textiles. Later, as a romantic teenager escaping from college, I spent hours at the       Reattu Museum. Besides wonderful local paintings, especially of an 18th-century couture workroom by Raspal, there are marvellous sketches donated by Picasso in his later days. They inspired me too, and I remember the excitement when we learned it was not only an exhibition but also a donation. It was like the times I went to the bullfight with my father and sat not far from Picasso and Cocteau.

The corrida is still an important feature of summer in Arles

      The corrida is still important in Arles' summer life. In the 1960s there were cocktail parties at the Grand Hotel Nord-Pinus, mixing aristocrats (I remember a princess of Orléans in pink Courrèges from head to toe), eccentrics and afictiondos - a vanished elegance, The actress Lucia Bose, all in black would be relieved at the sight of her bull-fighter husband,       Luis Miguel Dominguin, returning from the arena, his gold and white satin costume stained with blood. Then they would leave in a Hispano Suiza that seemed as high as a building to a child, piled with leather suitcases and a terracotta water pot strangely hung on top of his de luxe silver car.

The Nord-Pinus is now famous for top models and fashion photographs and I have my favourite room there whenever I go to Arles - number 10, decorated bull-fighter-style with a huge guilded mirror. Napoleon III slept there and Charlotte Rampling posed for a nude picture. The other main hotel is the Jules César where the hall and dining room have not changed since the days of the Duke of Windsor and Hemingway. The restaurant, Lou Marquès, has exquisite, modernised traditional Provençal cuisine served by girls in the historic Mirelle costume worn by women before marriage, with a white bow in their hair, a white shawl and a printed skirt.

Arles has great antique shops - the best is Servieux, a huge townhouse full of the rarest things. When I went to college my great-aunt gave me the chance to choose a Regency bed and some 18th-century furniture. You might be lucky and find interesting textiles or bric-a-brac at the Saturday flea market on the Boulevard des Lices, one of Provence's most important markets and a wonderful chance to listen to the local accent and breathe in the scents of vegetables, fresh fruit and cheeses. In December there is a fair for all the makers of santons, the Provençal Christmas crib figures. My favourites are by Carbonnel. Pinus is a fine shop for other traditional jewellery gifts - an egg cup to wish a baby luck at its christening or the cicada brooch that Mistral wanted every young girl to wear. Despite all these old rites, Arles is not a museum but a city that faced industrial crisis in the 1970s. New cultural enterprises have risen where the old factories closed. Contemporary culture is everywhere, and Arles is also the capital of literature translators. I loved the way it lives through art and exchange, in a special position between Spain and Italy, Paris and North Africa. It is unique, like the nearby Camargue. Keep in mind that people there in the past were poor and even now struggle to find the right balance between agriculture and ecology; breeding horses and bulls; the salt and rice industries. This is important and gives an intense truth to any expedition there.

Except in summer, everything is purple, copper and tangerine. The sky, earth and water are mixed. Stay at Le Mas de Peint, an elegant 17th-century house in the flatlands. Go to Chez Bob, with its great fish and rice dishes based on simple Carmarguais cuisine, or to the baroque yet primitive church at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, where as a child I was fascinated by the statue of Sainte Sara, patron of the gypsies. Buy a velvet jacket with tradirional, simple trousers for horse riding from Camille in Arles - their Renaissance-style saddles are beautiful too. Go to Aigues-Mortes with its medieval ramparts, where Louis IX left for the Crusades. I love the houses of straw roofs and white walls, and flamingos between the lakes and the sky.

The other side of Arles, round the rugged Alpilles hills where they used to film fake Westerns, is much richer. We call it the "golden triangle", both rough and sweet, wild and elegant. The restaurant are wonderful - Ou Ravi at Maussane-les-Alpilles with its courtyard and traditional dishes, La Régalido at Fontvielle and, most de luxe, l'Oustau de Baumanière, a medieval mas (farmhouse) in Hell Valley, named because legends of witches. The must-have dish, gigot en croute - lamb cooked in bread with truffles and mushrooms - is shear heaven."

Arles is 40 minute away

The Camargue

The Camargue, the most original and romantic region of Provence and possibly France, has been largely preserved in its natural state through its designation in 1928 and 1970 as a botanical and zoological nature reserve. Roads traverse the marshland; affording wide views (take fieldglasses if you have them). Late spring or early autumn are the best times for a visit: horses and bulls are easily seen and birds abound, the sun shines (but not overpowerlingly) and ther are the famous pilgrimages to Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer. At the heart of the Camargue lies Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a place of legendary origin and a pilgrimage for gypsies. Its fortified church is visible for miles across the marshlands. A new pleasure boat harbour nlies to the west.

The Camargue National Reserve

The reserve of 13 500ha - more than 50sq miles which extend around the Vaccares Lagoon is invaded each spring and autumn by migrants such as the purple heron, ospreys, plovers, avocets and swallows and affords winter quarters to duck and teal from northern Europe. In summer it is the place to see pink flamingoes. Roads skirt the reserve enabling one to see wildlife; for additional information apply to the information centreat La Capelliere, east of Vaccares Lagoon.

The - Manades - the sheep, the horses and the bulls.

Bulls and horses wander freely, watched by Camargue cowboys in large felt hats carrying long, three pronged sticks. The bulls, black, lithe and agile, with horns aloft, are the heroes of the Provencal, or cocarde, bullfights when the bull lives to see another day; the horses with creamy white coats - the foals are born brown and turn white only in their fourth year - are said to be decendants of the prehistoric beasts whose skeletons were discovered in a vast horse cemetery at Solutre (in the Rhone Valley, NNW of Lyons). They posses stamina, sureness of foot and quick intelligence, qualities well displayed also at ferrades when the cowboys use them as mounts to cut out year old steers for branding.

Sheep play an important part in the local economy but summer in the Alps.

There are a large number of owners who hire out horses for cowboy accompanied organised rides amongst the animals on the plain, in the marshes or on the beach.

The Camargue is 40 minutes away.