More Roman steps - ugh!

Monday 31^st March

This morning was a short visit to the Amphitheatre in Orange before heading to our next stop. The main feature of this amphitheatre is the still standing stage back wall. Can’t remember the dimensions, but pretty big. They have recently put a roof over the wall in hope of protecting it from rain and erosion. There is a statue of the emperor set up in the wall. These statues were provided to various venues and had removable heads, so when the ruler changed they just put on a new head. Another Roman structure from the 1^st century – and more bloody Roman steps.

 

Don't like the head - change it

The stage wall - and roof

From there we headed out to Aix-en-Provence via some secondary roads. From the amount of traffic on this road I would say I picked the main road used by everyone to avoid going through Avignon. The driving is improving. I don’t seem to spend as much time going ‘gutter’, ‘gutter’, 50, 50, 50 as I was doing in the first couple of days. You just can’t drive the same way you do in Australia.

Our main purpose in A de P was to check out the Paul Cezanne walk – a walk around town visiting places frequented by Paul Cezanne while living and painting in A de P, and a visit to the Musee de Tapisseries. The Cezanne walk turned out to be a bit of a dud – markings to lay the trail, but no sign at or on a lot of the buildings, or signs only in French.  

The Musee de Tapisseries was pretty small but amazing tapestries from the 1600s and 1700s. I was a bit disappointed that there was not a lot more, and more information on them would have helped. The museum is housed in what was the private apartments of the Archbishop way back.

The Musee de Tapisserie

We did walk through most of the old town of A de P – some lovely little streets and the central area is closed to traffic so you could just wander at your leisure. Shame I’m not really into shopping as there were lots of little shops with some interesting bits and pieces in them.

Streets of the old town

Just a lovely looking building

We then tried to find the area where Cezanne did a lot of his painting. A couple of signs pointed us in the general direction, but then just left us hanging with no idea where to go. Dora tried to help but she came up against a few no-go roads, so in the end we gave it up as a bad joke and headed for our accommodation for tonight in Salon de Provence.

Salon de Provence is really a small town. The maps can be a bit deceptive as to town size. We have just come back from dinner in town where we found only one restaurant (I am sure there are more but they weren’t obvious). It turned out to be a very nice meal and the waiter tried very hard with his little English and our little French.

We are now heading west and towards Spain at the end of this week. The weather has improved and is around 20 during the day and we get to take the jumpers off.

A WOW end to the day

Sunday 30^th March

Well, we’ve had an interesting sort of day today. We decided we needed an early start because we had a lot we wanted to do today. So, I was up at 6.45 and we were at breakfast at 7.30, only to find that daylight saving had started and it was in fact 8.30. As they say – the best laid plans…etc.

On the road not too late and the roads were quiet as we headed to Nimes. Here we wanted to see the Arena – from 1^st century. Parked the car underground and of course went the wrong way up on street level. I asked a lady where to find the arena and she told us about another sight to see – tres interesante she said – and then she even turned back the way she had come and walked with us until she could show us the temple. As I said yesterday, we have found the French to be very helpful, nothing that a smile won’t fix!

At the temple we saw a film that described the building of Nimes from 50BC through until 100AD.

Next stop the arena which is a full arena (gladiator/bull fighting ring). These Romans must have had great legs – the steps are huge and I was feeling it.

Gladiators?

Lunch – mussels for Rob and Calamari Provence style for me. Very nice.

 

Calamari Provence style

A huge bowl of mussels

From there we headed to Arles where Rob wanted to do a walk that highlighted Van Gogh moments in Arles. Here was where Lonely Planet led us astray as it said the tourist bureau was open to 4.45 and it closed at 1. We are going to have to remember not to make too many plans for a Sunday as we have run into this sort of problem before. So, no walk, but a nice coffee and cake instead. Only one photo in Arles -

The old-fashioned pissoir

The WOW part of the day.

It was too early to head back to the hotel so we decided we had just enough time to get to Les Baux de Provence and see the Carrieres and Lumieres. This was an absolute high for the trip. This place is an old limestone quarry and they project art images onto the limestone walls along with a soundtrack. The exhibition on at the moment is Gustave Klimt. We were both in total awe – it was jaw dropping and seemed to bring the paintings to life. It was a fantastic end to the day after the disappointment of missing the Van Gogh stuff.

Heading away from the show we took a road up over the hills and got some great shots back to the castle that we hope to visit later in the week.

Les Baux castle

It was a late night back to town so we bought pizza and a bottle of wine at the pizza van in the main street - 12 Euros. Very nice dinner.

Sur le Pont d'Avignon

Saturday 29^th March

Supposedly a rest day today – at least we are not travelling 100s of K. We decided on a nice restful drive round trip to Avignon. I wanted to stand sur le pont.

It was an easy drive to Avignon – we were on the road reasonably early so traffic was not too bad. So far we have stayed off the tollways but may have to use them soon to cover some ground as your average speed off the highways is deceptively slow – probably around 50kph.

First visit in Avignon was the Palais des Papes – the palace of the popes settled by Pope Clement V in 1309 and was home to the popes until they moved back to Rome. There was one room they called the treasury and as late as 1985 they found secret compartments under the floor where the loot was stashed. Some amazing rooms in the palace – 50m long by 15m wide by 20m high. Makes my living room look tiny. How does one heat that space?

Next stop Saint Benezit bridge – the bridge of Avignon. Goal achieved – we stood on the bridge, but no dancing.

The door to the bridge

Saint Benizet bridge - the bridge of Avignon

And I found a little shop in Avignon that had scraps of Provence fabric - just a few in the suitcase.

Our final stop for the day was the Pont du Gard – the aqueduct, from around 19 BC. This was ginormous. What an amazing feat of engineering for its time (and even modern times). Photos I have seen just did not lead me to expect something of this size.  

Finally back to Orange – and the laundromat. Washing done and time for dinner. We keep talking about the food and meals. So far I am finding the food uninspiring and the menus are quite small, certainly not as extensive as ours, and at dinner time tend to be on the expensive side. Tonight we had rabbit which was OK. 

Roman times and sun

Friday 28^th March

Today we are heading South again, and finally we are seeing improvement in the weather. A frosty morning, but looking like a nice day coming.

Before hitting the road we had time for a look around Vienne. We were looking for the amphitheatre but found ourselves going round in circles, and heading up questionable roads, so we gave up on that idea and just went where the road wanted to take us – which was to a church on top of the hill that overlooked Vienne and overlooked the elusive amphitheatre. Fabulous views and well worth getting temporarily misaligned.

Vienne amphitheatre

Next stop in Vienne was the Gallo-Roman museum. This museum is on the site of an archeological dig in Vienne where they have found the remains of a town dating back to 1 AD on the banks of the Rhone river. Another fantastic museum showing the history of the town. There were a lot of mosaics displayed in the museum that have been uncovered in the dig. Inside the museum they had a lot of models and there were walkways up above so that you could look down on the model. Then outside the museum you could walk around the ‘streets’ of the town that they have exposed. How many thousand pairs of feet have passed over these roads in 2000 years?

I'm not really into company at times like this!

We again saw school groups of kids at the museum, and one group had shields and swords and the teacher was showing them battle formations.

Time to hit the road and we found a nice little bakery along the way where we were able to sit outside in the sun and eat lunch. Warming up – it hit 20C today.

We found our hotel in Orange with no trouble. So far we are doing well with hotels – not the most salubrious but for the amount of time we spend in the room they are perfectly adequate, and so far all have had free parking. They have tended to be near the motorways and I was worried about noise, but so far that has not been a problem.

Just another castle on a hill

Three nights here – time to do some washing. You must all be wondering if we brought any other clothes – we might get to wear them now that it is warming up.

Train to Lyon

Thursday 27^th March

A pretty big day yesterday (Thurs) so I am writing this blog a day later. We decided to leave the car at the hotel in Vienne and travel into Lyon by bus and train – there was a bus right behind the hotel that went to the station in Vienne. The train took us to the central station in Lyon and from there we were able to walk to the textile museum – via the patchwork shop. I’m trying to share the love around all the shops – just a little in each one.

The patchwork shop - ABCDaire

While I was in the patchwork shop Rob had a bit of a walk around. He was watching a lady trying to load a chair and painting in a small car – she had just stopped in the middle of the road and traffic was banking up. A couple of cars back someone pulled out of a parking space, so they just put the chair  and picture in  the middle of the space and she drove around the block, then came back and parked and loaded up. Never in Melbourne!

The textile museum – Wow! No photos allowed here so I’ll just have to tell you how impressed we both were with the display of textiles going back to early 1200s. I find it hard to believe that these fabrics have preserved so well. Some of them were just so rich and luxurious.

Next was a trip up the funicular to the Basilica de Notre Dame. Another beautiful church and the views over Lyon from here were expansive. From there it was a short walk across to the Roman ruins from 1^st century. We have seen a lot of school groups at various historic locations we have visited – these kids are so lucky to have these ‘living history’ lessons.

Roman ruins from 1st century

Mosaic tiling in the church

Lunchtime – down into old Lyon and time to wander the streets. This was a lovely part of Lyon with numerous restaurants to choose from. We ate at a patisserie where the dessert was adding inches just sitting on the plate.

 

Old Lyon - street view

Lunchtime patisserie

Glad I don't live up there

Another thing that has impressed us in a lot of places is the window displays in shops. They seem to take a lot of pride in presenting their wares in a way that entices you to enter and browse. The photos don't do them justice as we get a lot of reflection on the glass.

We were pretty tired by late afternoon so to fill in time before catching our train back to Vienne we took a trolley bus ride to the end of the line and back – just to see how the Lyonnaise live. The parks scattered throughout the city see a lot of use as there seems to be mostly apartment living.

The train back to Vienne was a short trip – only 20 minutes – and the trains are so quiet. We found a lovely restaurant for dinner where the waitress spoke exceptionally good English. Rob and I had both heard about how rude the French can be if you don’t speak the language – we have not found this to be the case and in fact everyone seems to be very helpful. 

We took a taxi back to the hotel from the city but if I was understanding the taxi driver correctly we were very lucky and might have been standing there waiting all night.