Welcome to SAINT-RÉMY DE PROVENCE
You have decided to spend your holidays in South of France, in Provence: discover the unusual cultural and historical face offered by Saint Rémy de Provence located in the heart of the Alpilles. Places of calm, sheltered from the heat of summer, let yourself be seduced by the exceptional heritage that awaits you for an enchanted break.
This village is first of all the locality of the Alpilles, located in the triangle of the villages of Eygalières, Les Baux de Provence and Maussane les Alpilles. A veritable small town with its boulevard shaded by plane trees where you can stroll at the gentle pace of Provence. From the Jean Jaurès gate to the gates of the old town, you will discover, in addition to the art galleries and the café terraces, 4 essential visits: the Estrine Museum, the Alpilles Museum, Saint Paul de Mausolé and the archaeological site of Glanum .
GLANUM ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE
The archaeological site of Glanum is characterized by important religious and civil monuments discovered in 1921. Glanum is a sanctuary city at the crossroads of two ancient routes connecting Italy to Spain. Located south of the town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, in the direction of Les Baux-de-Provence, the city stretches at the entrance to a rocky pass which leads to Mont Gaussier. The mausoleum and the Arc de Triomphe of Glanum, neighbors of a few meters, are traditionally called the “Antiques of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence”. Their location on the side of the Alpilles and their state of conservation have ensured them a celebrity long before the late rediscovery of the city of Glanum.
Glanon, a Greek city dedicated to a healing god, before being the Glanum, an ancient city of the Roman Empire, reached its peak at the time of the first Roman emperor Augustus. Its development was based on the protection of the reliefs of the Alpilles, the presence of a sacred spring and the vicinity of the Domitian Way. The city rests on several strata of occupation, which can be grouped into three main periods: Gallic period, period of Hellenistic influence, and finally Roman period
ESTRINE MUSEUM
A true gem of 18th century Provencal architecture, the Hôtel Estrine was built in 1748 to house the Judicial Seat of the Princes of Monaco. Completely restored in 1989 and awarded the Living Heritage Prize from the Fondation de France, it has housed the Musée Estrine since 2007, a young museum in France.
To pay tribute to Vincent Van Gogh, the Estrine Museum has created a multimedia educational space dedicated to the life and work of the painter. The Vincent Van Gogh interpretation center allows visitors to (re) discover the human and artistic journey of this exceptional personality and his influence on the creation of the 20th and 21st century.
The collection of the Musée Estrine is dedicated to painting and the graphic arts of the 20th and 21st centuries in the filiation of the two great artists who marked the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Vincent van Gogh and Albert Gleizes. With more than 1000 works, this collection draws a rich panorama of regional and national creation. Two to three temporary exhibitions are organized each year around important themes of painting or highly talented painters and designers.
The permanent exhibition begins with the work of Albert Gleizes from his figurative beginnings to his abstract research. It then continues with a room dedicated to post-cubist figuration to continue on two rooms dedicated to large abstractions. There are works by Anna Eva Bergmann, Jacques Busse, Geneviève Claisse, Estève, Lucien Lautrec, André Marchand, Piet Mondrian, etc.
LE MUSÉE DES ALPILLES
In the intimacy of Renaissance architecture, the Musée des Alpilles offers a contemporary museum tour for the pleasure of discovering the rich heritage of the region (Musée de France). Located in the historic center of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, the Alpilles museum is housed in the Mistral de Mondragon hotel, a former Renaissance mansion (classified as a Historic Monument) built around an admirable interior courtyard. Created in 1919 by Pierre de Brun.
Ethnology
A stroll through time and space, the permanent exhibition at the Musée des Alpilles evokes various unsuspected or little-known facets of regional heritage: from pastoralism to traditional costume and bullfighting of the Camargue type, including culture and the trade in milk thistle, sleeping poppy and seed seeds. To better understand the current, natural and human landscapes of this part of Provence.
Graphic arts
Works of international renown, signed Vincent van Gogh or Albert Gleizes, were born here. However, there is also the often remarkable work of discreet, anonymous or locally known creators.
The graphic and photographic art studio as well as the typography and engraving workshop translate the museum’s new orientation towards works on paper and contemporary engraving.
SAINT PAUL DE MAUSOLE
The Saint-Paul-de-Mausole monastery is a Romanesque monastery located in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The monastery owes its name to the proximity of the mausoleum of Glanum, which forms with the triumphal arch of Glanum a set that is traditionally called the “Antiques of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence”.
The monastery shelters an asylum, the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, which is called today the “House of Health of Saint-Paul -de-Mausole”.
Vincent Van Gogh spent a year in this psychiatric hospital from May 3, 1889 to May 16, 1890, shortly before his death. He painted many paintings there: self-portraits, but also Iris, The Starry Night, Cypresses, The Field of Wheat with the Reaper, On the floor above the cloister galleries are the rooms of the asylum: today we can still see the reconstruction of the room that Van Gogh occupied on the first floor.
