Travel another way

Still from Joan’s diary, one of our guests on our tours for women to Provence.

Cathedrale D’Images is one of the most incredible things I have seen and I can only hope to describe this with some accuracy. We drove about 40 min through the town of St. Remy to the village of Chateau des Baux. Another medieval hilltop village built in stone surrounding a huge castle. This area is very rocky, there are enormous cliffs of solid rock.  Very close by (15 min walk) there is  a quarry that excavated the stone for about 100 years. The remains of the quarry include a vast stone ‘cave’ dug into the hillside. This site has been transformed into Cathedral D’Images. (Google it!)

The walls of the cave are enormous, 50 feet tall. You enter into the dark cave and upon these massive walls are projected images of Van Gogh’s art and some background on the artist. This is all set to dramatic classical music. On one wall you see a self portrait of Van Gogh (20′x30′), on the adjoining wall is a close up of his eyes, 30′x40′. Then the images change to the days when he painted in Provence. And then to his tormented final days in Auvers. 

There were images projected on close to 25 walls, plus some on the floor, all of it on a very large scale. Between the images and the dramatic music you get sensation of being in the paintings. It is truly remarkable and quite  moving. It gave me goosebumps. Joan D., San Jose California