Five-star hotels in Arles, between the Roman arena and the Camargue

Hotels in Arles: a Roman town at the head of the Rhône delta

Arles stands on the Rhône just below the point where the river forks into two branches, the Grand Rhône and the Petit Rhône, to form the Camargue delta. Because much of the Camargue lies within its boundaries, the commune covers 758.93 km², the largest in metropolitan France and more than seven times the area of Paris. The town itself is compact: the UNESCO property of 65 hectares corresponds to the historic centre, which has kept its medieval street plan within the limits of its old defensive walls.

That history is layered. A Roman colony for veterans of the Sixth Legion was founded here in 46 BC under Julius Caesar, and in Late Antiquity Arles became a political and religious capital. In the 19th century the arrival of the railway reduced river trade, and the Roman monuments were cleared of the houses built into them. Today the town's open-air street market, a major one for the region, takes place on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.

For a traveller, that makes hotels in Arles a walking base: the UNESCO monuments lie within the historic centre, and the wetlands of the Camargue begin just south of the town.

The Roman and Romanesque monuments

UNESCO inscribed Arles, Roman and Romanesque Monuments on the World Heritage List in 1981. The eight major buildings of the property tell the story of an ancient city adapted to medieval Europe. The oldest, the amphitheatre, the Roman theatre and the cryptoporticus, the underground galleries of the forum, date from the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD.

The amphitheatre measures 136 by 109 m, with two tiers of arcades, and held more than 20,000 spectators. After the fall of Rome it became a fortress and then a small town of more than 200 houses, which were expropriated and cleared between 1826 and 1830. Today it hosts plays and concerts in summer and the bullfights of the Feria d'Arles, held at Easter and again in September.

A second golden age came in the 4th century, recorded by the baths of Constantine and the Alyscamps necropolis, where the Church of Saint-Honorat was built in the 12th century. In the 11th and 12th centuries Arles flourished again. The portal of the Church of Saint-Trophime is linked to the coronation of Frederick Barbarossa as King of Arles in 1178, and the church and its cloister rank among the major works of Provençal Romanesque art.

The finds are displayed at the Musée départemental Arles antique, a modern building designed by Henri Ciriani in 1995. Its centrepiece is the Gallo-Roman barge Arles-Rhône 3, raised from the river and shown with more than 480 objects from the Rhône, the sea and the city's subsoil. The museum also holds a marble bust found in the Rhône in 2007, which some specialists identify as Julius Caesar and others as a local notable.

Hôtel Jules César, a former convent on the Boulevard des Lices

Hôtel Jules César is at 9 Boulevard des Lices, in the centre of Arles. The hotel describes itself as a five-star hotel built in a former convent and decorated by Christian Lacroix. The Atout France register lists 52 rooms and dates the five-star classification to 4 June 2024; according to the hotel, 11 of them are suites and junior suites.

Rooms range from 13 m² for a Classic Single with a garden view to 34 m² for a Suite with a king bed and a double sofa bed. Decoration follows three themes depending on the floor: Lacroix, Provençale or Monacale. The 26 m² Deluxe Double rooms are accessible rooms.

Lou Marquès, the restaurant, serves French cuisine and has a terrace; the hotel says it is named after the Marquis Folco de Baroncelli-Javon. Le Jules serves tapas. The heated outdoor pool sits in a garden, and the hotel closes it in winter. The CINQ MONDES spa, set under the vaults of the former monastery and looking onto the convent's aromatic garden, has a sauna, a hammam, a jacuzzi and three treatment cabins, and there is a fitness centre with Technogym equipment. The hotel also has three meeting rooms and offers valet parking.

In Van Gogh's footsteps

Vincent van Gogh arrived in Arles on 21 February 1888 and left in May 1889 for the asylum of Saint-Paul at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. In fifteen months he produced more than 300 paintings and drawings, including The Night Café, Starry Night Over the Rhône and L'Arlésienne. Paul Gauguin joined him in the autumn of 1888; the ear incident of that December led to two stays in the town's old hospital.

The old hospital is now the Espace Van Gogh, its garden framed on all four sides by the buildings of the complex. On the Place du Forum, the café Van Gogh painted in mid-September 1888 for Café Terrace at Night was refurbished in 1990 and 1991 to resemble the painting; visitors can stand at the north-eastern corner of the square, where he set up his easel.

The Yellow House itself is gone. It was severely damaged in an Allied bombing raid on 25 June 1944 and later demolished. The Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, established under that name in 2010 and housed in the Hôtel Léautaud de Donines, presents contemporary art in dialogue with the painter's work and his idea of an artists' centre in Arles. The Langlois bridge, known as the Van Gogh bridge, is also on the town's Van Gogh itinerary.

The Rencontres d'Arles and LUMA

The Rencontres d'Arles, an annual photography festival, was founded in 1970 by the Arles photographer Lucien Clergue, the writer Michel Tournier and the historian Jean-Maurice Rouquette. Exhibitions take over historic sites, from 12th-century chapels to 19th-century industrial buildings, and in 2016 the festival passed 100,000 visitors. Guest programmers have included Martin Parr, Raymond Depardon, Nan Goldin and, in 2008, Christian Lacroix. The 2026 edition opened in early July and closes in early October.

LUMA Arles, created by the LUMA Foundation under Maja Hoffmann, occupies the Parc des Ateliers, a 7-hectare former industrial site where the PLM railway company built and repaired steam locomotives; at its peak it was the town's largest employer, with more than 1,800 workers. The site now has nine buildings, five of them for exhibitions, and a 4-hectare landscaped park by Bas Smets, completed in 2021.

Its landmark is the tower designed by Frank Gehry with Maja Hoffmann, 56 m high and clad in about 11,000 angled stainless steel panels. It opened to the public on 26 June 2021 and contains exhibition spaces, a library, an auditorium and a café.

Arles as the gateway to the Camargue

The Camargue spreads south of Arles between the Mediterranean and the two arms of the Rhône. With more than 930 km², it is one of western Europe's largest river deltas, and about a third of it is lakes or marshland; the shores of the Étang de Vaccarès have been protected since 1927. It was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance on 1 December 1986. Arles itself has been called the Camargue's capital.

The Parc naturel régional de Camargue was created by decree on 25 September 1970, the first regional nature park in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, and has had its headquarters at the Mas du Pont de Rousty since 1975. The delta's brine ponds are one of the few European habitats of the greater flamingo, and Camargue horses and Camargue cattle roam the marshes, raised in free-running herds called manades and worked by the gardians.

On the coast, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer receives the annual Romani pilgrimage in honour of Saint Sarah. In the south of the commune, industrialists founded Salin-de-Giraud in 1856 to work the salt. On the far western edge, across the Petit Rhône in the Gard, the walled town of Aigues-Mortes guards the Petite Camargue and its salt marshes.

Getting to Arles by train and road

Arles station has direct regional trains to Avignon, Nîmes, Marseille and Montpellier, and some direct TGVs from Paris Gare de Lyon, which SNCF times at under four hours. From Avignon TGV, on the high-speed line, the simplest rail route is the shuttle train to Avignon-Centre and a direct regional train on from there. By road, the A54 motorway, which links Salon-de-Provence with Nîmes, passes the town. A stay in Avignon and one in Arles combine easily, and our guide to judging a hotel's location and transport links helps when comparing addresses.