Lyon to Marseille: Part 2 Great Continental Railway Journeys

I'm embarking on a new railway adventure that will take me

across the heart of Europe.

I'll be using this,

my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide,

dated 1913, which opened up an exotic world of foreign travel

for the British tourist.

It told travellers where to go, what to see, and how to navigate

the thousands of miles of tracks crisscrossing the continent.

Now, a century later,

I'm using my copy to reveal an era of great optimism and energy,

where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.

I want to rediscover that lost Europe that, in 1913, couldn't know

that its way of life would shortly be swept aside by the advent of war.

I'm continuing my journey through Southern France.

I began in Lyon, following the mistral wind

down the Rhone Valley to Avignon.

I'll visit Arles, a magnet for fin-de-siecle painters.

I'll then travel towards the coast,

finishing up at the gateway to the former French Empire.

I'll find out what inspired artists in Arles...

The answer is always the light.

And the reason the light here is so special is because of the wind,

which is called the mistral.

..and feel the fervour of France's stirring national anthem.

# ..marchons

# Qu'un sang impur

# Abreuve nos sillons. #

Bravo, monsieur.

Historic Avignon opens the way to Provence,

a region whose rugged landscapes and vivid, sun-drenched colours

have beguiled tourists before and since the time

of my Bradshaw's guide.

I'm heading out into the nearby countryside

to immerse myself in a quintessentially Provencal

sensory experience.

At the time of my guidebook, lavender was beginning to stain

the landscape, planted by entrepreneurial farmers.

Lavender grower Philippe Soguel is their heir.

So, Philippe, I see you're harvesting the lavender today

on an industrial scale.

And 100 years ago,

what was this product going into? What sort of uses did it have?

At that time, it was really for the perfume.

And of course, people smell the same perfume than today.

And I think that...

lavender is really a great perfume,

loved by people all around the world.

Lavender scents were hugely popular in Edwardian Britain,

and the craze also swept the continent,

encouraging Provencal farmers to begin to cultivate the plant

on an industrial scale

and to use steam power to extract the pungent essence

from the flowers.

This distillery was built in 1939.

The first boiler

was in fact a locomotive...

..which was used to produce steam.

'These days, a gas boiler is used,

'but otherwise, the process is unchanged.

'The harvested lavender is placed in a vat above the steamer,

'ready for the distillation to begin.'

-So I have to catch this?

-Yes.

Whoa! OK.

And you have to arrange all these branches, OK?

Yeah, OK.

-Perfect.

-I used to play cricket.

Allez-y... Merci.

Do you think you will be free for the next season?

-LAUGHING:

-I'd love to.

The steam breaks down the flowers,

carrying with it the scented oil that they contain,

which rises to the top when the steam is condensed back to water.

So it's a pure and natural lavandin essential oil,

a hybrid of lavender.

And so we will remove,

I hope...

..a few couples of kilograms of this essential oil.

Lavender has long been prized for its fragrance

and for its reputed medicinal properties,

being used to treat ailments from insomnia to burns.

Oh! The scent of Haute Provence!

Yes, absolutely.

The Avignon popes hugely improved the wine

grown to the north of the city.

The Chateauneuf-du-Pape,

the New Castle of the Pope,

was actually built by John XXII.

The grapes may only be grown in soil that's arid enough

to support lavender and thyme,

and the wine has a sense of spices,

and it glows ruby red like a sunset.

A new day, and my next train awaits,

as I continue along my 1913 guidebook's recommended route

through Southern France.

I shall be leaving this train at Arles.

Bradshaw's says, "..a very old place on the River Rhone."

"..the Roman Arelate on the Via Aurelia" -

the old Roman highway.

Down the Rhone Valley towards the Mediterranean,

blows the mistral -

a very strong wind, which can be maddening when it lasts for days,

but it takes away the dust, leaving behind clear air

and blue skies,

the clarity and the colour

which have made such an impression on painters and other artists.

According to my guidebook,

here in Arles,

"the interest for the traveller is in the Roman remains,"

and Bradshaw's ensured that Edwardian readers wasted no time

in getting stuck in, directing them from the railway station

straight to the town's famous amphitheatre.

The amphitheatre, Bradshaw's tells me,

"is 500 yards in circumference

"and dates from the beginning of the Christian era.

"The 43 tiers of seats could accommodate 26,000 spectators."

Tourists still come here in their droves

to admire the Roman architecture,

but the town is also a place of pilgrimage for art lovers.

In the 1880s, an unknown Dutch artist - Vincent Van Gogh -

felt the magnetic pull of the Provencal landscape

and settled in Arles.

Gallery owner Julia de Bierre

knows about his turbulent visit.

Julia, what was it that attracted Van Gogh to Arles?

Well, of course, the answer is always the light.

And the reason that the light here is so special

is because of the wind, which is called the mistral,

which is like a living thing,

an animal outside your door,

which can howl for one day,

three days, six days or nine days.

And on the ninth day, you go mad.

So the mistral produces the light, which is lovely,

but also it provokes you in some way, does it?

It does, it creates a sort of a violence, a drama...

and I think that was very part of...the life that,

you know, when Van Gogh was living here.

I think that was part and parcel of his creative life here.

Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888,

hoping to establish an artist's colony.

His first recruit was another avant-garde visionary -

Paul Gauguin.

But their dream soon took a darker turn.

Gauguin arrived in October.

They shared the little yellow house together.

They worked together.

They had many, sort of, artistic discussions.

And then, on the 23rd of December,

they had a row.

At the end of that row, for reasons that are still not clear,

Van Gogh cut his ear off.

And Gauguin?

And Gauguin left for Paris.

Within 18 months, aged just 37,

the troubled Van Gogh had died from a gunshot wound,

thought to have been self-inflicted.

But despite his premature death, he left a remarkable legacy,

with Arles having inspired him to new artistic heights.

In the course of a year, he painted or drew over 300 works.

So it was absolutely extraordinary.

And obviously, many of the masterpieces

that we are so familiar with - the sunflowers in the vases,

the iris, the...portraits -

so many of them were done here in Arles.

In his lifetime,

Van Gogh's reputation was confined to artistic circles,

but by the time of my guidebook, his fame was growing.

The British general public got its first glimpse of his work

in a 1910 exhibition which was widely derided.

But this is one instance

where I can't agree with my Edwardian forebears.

By an extraordinary piece of luck,

Van Gogh's picture of the yellow house where he stayed in Arles,

which normally hangs in Amsterdam,

is here in town.

Here's the little restaurant where he used to take his meals...

and the routine of life is emphasised by the little train

making its way towards the Rhone.

Here's the guest bedroom where Paul Gauguin stayed,

with its shutters open to the world,

and Van Gogh's bedroom, the shutters half closed.

With the typical vibrancy of Van Gogh's colours,

we have a feeling of happiness.

And yet we know that behind these shutters,

there occurred the most appalling tragedy.

Ever since Van Gogh's time, Arles has continued to attract artists.

Today, it's known as the birthplace and hometown

of one of France's most celebrated photographers - Lucien Clergue.

Famous for works including striking images of Arles

and intimate portraits of Pablo Picasso,

these days, sadly, ill-health limits his work.

I'm honoured to enjoy a brief audience with this living legend.

Lucien, thank you so much for having us in your lovely house,

but I'm thinking, Arles has been such an inspiration, it seems,

to Van Gogh, to Picasso, to you...

Why?

Arles is a very old town.

It's an open book about beauty.

Then the light is unique.

Fantastic light because of the...

of the mistral, the wind.

Many artists had been visiting

until Vincent Van Gogh

was, uh...impressed by

what those people were telling.

So he wants to go.

So Van Gogh was a step.

And 50 years after...

..Picasso was a second step.

When a Van Gogh show was on,

Picasso called the curator and say,

"When you take off the painting, call me -

"I want to have them in my hand."

Could you believe?

He came especially from Cannes.

To touch the painting?

Yeah.

As a young aspiring photographer, Lucien met the great Picasso,

striking up a friendship which endured until the painter's death.

As well as creating an extraordinary body of work,

Lucien Clergue was one of the founders

of an annual photographic festival here in Arles

which showcases new talent from across the world.

And the town itself is full of attractions

for amateur photographers.

Having feasted my eyes on the architecture of Arles,

it's time to think of my stomach.

An advertisement in my Bradshaw's guide

has brought me to spend the night at the Grand Hotel Du Nord-Pinus,

as it says it is the only hotel contiguous to the Roman forum.

I've looked around for local products,

which has bought me to this pastis.

A liquor which is a little too aniseed flavour for my taste.

But look at this tapenade made from locally-grown olives.

Delicious.

Just south of Arles, the Rhone splits into two

for its final journey towards the Mediterranean,

creating Western Europe's largest river delta - the Camargue.

In this extraordinary wetland habitat of 100,000 hectares,

flamingos live side by side with semi-wild cattle,

herded by local cowboys, who ride the indigenous horses.

Then, to the east of this magical wilderness,

the marshes give way to one of the most dramatic stretches

of the Mediterranean coast.

And my last railway journey in France promises a magnificent view.

This line was originally built for freight,

but clipping the inlets and bays of the Mediterranean,

passengers today know it as the Blue Line.

I must say, I love this landscape -

rustic-coloured roofs nestling amongst umbrella pines,

and then all the various colours of the sea

under this intense light

that magnetised Van Gogh and mesmerises the tourist.

This railway was built in 1915 to provide an alternative route

to the Paris-Lyon-Marseille mainline.

And with 23 tunnels and 18 viaducts,

it was an engineering triumph.

I'm approaching my last stop, Marseille, which Bradshaw's tells me

is the principal seaport of France.

"Trade with Algiers and Tunis, and to the East through the Suez Canal,

"have given it a wonderful impetus, but the Suez Canal has also brought

"Trieste and Genoa into prominent competition."

The French had a lot of colonies - not only Tunisia and Algeria,

but also Morocco and Vietnam -

and so Britain's ally was also Britain's imperial rival.

If the port of Marseille was the maritime gateway

to the French colonies, the Paris-to-Marseille railway,

dubbed the Ligne Imperiale, kept the capital

plugged in to its sprawling empire.

Today, the port's imposing railway terminus,

which opened in 1848,

is a key stop on the TGV network.

Railway travellers can cover the 750km from Paris

to Gare Saint-Charles in just about three hours.

Beneath the hustle and bustle of the modern station,

it's possible to imagine Marseille at the height of the Age of Empire.

I'm hunting for traces of that past with historian Berny Sebe.

Berny, this magnificent station at Marseille Saint-Charles,

what does this tell us about the French Empire?

It tells us a lot about the ways in which France,

first of all, was...conceived itself as a major imperial power

through the reference to "Marseille - gateway to the Orient," because

many of the French colonies were in the Orient, in the Far East,

and also through the two statues which refer to the colonies

of Asia and Africa.

By the time of my guidebook, the seven-million-square-mile

French Empire was second only to the 13 million square miles

controlled by Britain.

In the 1890s, competition between the Great Powers for influence

in Africa had led them to the brink of war.

But the 20th century ushered in a period of mutual cooperation

in the face of a new rival.

To a large extent, it's the rise of Germany which brings Britain

and France closer and which forces them to solve their issues.

And the Germans realised that if they wanted also to have their

own place in the sun, they would need to take some territories out

of existing empires.

And the threat which the growing also German navy

posed at the time, the territorial threat which Germany posed to France,

meant that the two countries actually could see eye to eye.

And they think, to a large extent, time has come for them to find

an entente cordiale, which is finally signed in 1904.

The Entente Cordiale was a pet project of King Edward VII,

a lifelong Francophile.

But many of his subjects were more wary

of their revolutionary neighbour.

After all, the national anthem of the Third Republic,

first sung by revolutionary troops from Marseille

and now known as La Marseillaise,

rails against tyrants,

presumably aristocrats and monarchs.

And it's still sung heartily today.

# Aux armes, citoyens

# Formez vos bataillons

# Marchons, marchons

# Qu'un sang impur

# Abreuve nos sillons. #

Bravo, monsieur, bravo.

Tres bien fait.

Guten Morgen. Allemand?

Non, je suis anglais.

-On est des freres.

-Ah, on est des freres. Tres bien.

Merci.

At the time of my guidebook,

with the Third Republic firmly established,

the French Empire was reaching its peak.

Helped by railway lines built across Indochina and North Africa,

exotic colonial products and raw materials found their way here,

to the heaving port at Marseille,

where they crossed paths with French goods bound for foreign markets

opened up by imperial expansion.

For the Edwardian railway traveller,

the first glimpse of the docks must have been awe-inspiring.

"14 miles of quays,

"more than seven million tonnes of merchandise annually imported

"and exported and more than 400,000 travellers landing and embarking.

"The imports are cereals, oil seeds, coal, sugar, coffee, hides,

"sheep from Algeria and wool."

Although Marseille is the largest seaport in France,

you get the impression that it is

an international city of the Mediterranean,

looking out towards North Africa

more than it does back towards Paris.

Ever since its foundation 2,500 years ago,

Marseille has been a cosmopolitan city,

and today, it remains the melting pot of France.

After the Second World War,

as the European empires were dismantled,

Marseille's prosperity suffered,

and the waves of immigrants arriving here

weren't always welcomed with open arms.

But the 21st century has given the city a fresh lease of life.

It's recently undergone a £6 billion makeover,

with new museums and monuments adorning the quays,

which once thronged with sailors and merchants.

The docks described in my guidebook

declined in the second half of the 20th century,

but Marseille is still a city that depends on the sea for survival.

Nowadays, a vast, modern port, built just up the coast in the 1960s,

helps to support over 40,000 jobs.

I'm climbing the control tower to survey the scene with Jean-Yves Coz.

-Monsieur le chef de quart.

-Hello, how are you?

How very good to see you.

I'm getting a very good view from here. This is superb.

How big is the port of Marseille?

The port of Marseille is...as big like Paris.

-As big as Paris?!

-Yes.

Around 80km from each side, between each side.

That is extraordinary.

'By the 1960s, the French Empire was no more.

'The government sought to rebuild Marseille's economy

'by encouraging the oil and metal industries,

'luring mega-tankers to the new port,

'which is built on a dizzying scale.'

We receive around...between 5,000

and 6,000 vessels per year.

This must make it the biggest port in France.

Yes, it's the biggest port in France.

-And I suppose one of the biggest in Europe.

-One of the biggest, yes.

-We have a special port for oil here.

-Yes.

Here we have a big iron factory.

And here we have also a very big

container terminal.

We receive a lot of container ships.

Today, we have a big one,

we have a ship 366 metres long.

'Managing the arrivals

'of these enormous ships is a complex task.

'I'm joining pilot Olivier Tillon to see how it's done.'

Olivier!

-Hello.

-Bonjour.

-Bonjour. Montez.

-Merci.

-Apres vous.

Pilots like Olivier ensure the safety of the port waters,

guiding supertankers and vast container ships

safely to the right berth.

Which ship are we going to?

The name is Minerva. It's a tanker, about 100,000 tonnes.

-Crude oil?

-Crude oil, yes.

Is it complicated to navigate into the port?

Ah, it's complicated because it's a big ship, very heavy,

so we have to make...be careful and to go slowly.

Once the pilot reaches the ship that he's guiding in,

he boards the vessel and takes control.

The pilot is in charge because we know the area.

We have many training for this job.

-Exciting.

-Yes, it's exciting. Very nice for a job, yes.

Were you nervous when you first did it?

100,000 tonnes under your control.

The first time, yes, it's incredible.

Do you want to steer the pilot boat?

Oh, yes, please.

It's not very difficult. You go straight...

I let you replace.

I'm heading more or less for the tug at the moment.

Yeah, we arrive at a good moment where they make fast with tug,

so we'll see the operation.

'With the advent of heavy steamships in the 19th century,

'tugs became essential to help them

'to manoeuvre within the narrow confines of a harbour,

'and today's supertankers still depend on them.'

You refer often enough in conversation to a supertanker,

how difficult it is to turn them around, but actually,

you have no idea, until you get really close to one,

just how enormous they are.

And then I'm always astonished that these little tug boats

can be powerful enough

actually to influence the course of that massive vessel.

And then this process is going on day after day.

None of us ever thinks about it,

but this is the oil coming to Europe that keeps our economy going.

This port is a crucial link in the 21st-century global supply chain,

just as railway lines

were the arteries of Europe's empires at their height.

My journey towards France's imperial gateway

has revealed how the modern French nation was created

during the age of steam.

100 years ago, at the time of my Bradshaw's guide,

the United Kingdom was allied with a country which had recently

settled that it would never be a monarchy again.

France's Third Republic institutionalised

a revolutionary national day and a revolutionary national anthem.

Politics aside, from my rail journey following the mistral wind

down the Rhone Valley to the Mediterranean,

I shall long remember the countryside

with its beautiful horses,

and the products of the land - red wine, lavender and olive oil -

as evocative of France as the 14th of July

and La Marseillaise.