Wednesday, June 1, 2011

France Travel Journal. Day 2 (Wed., June 1) - Narbonne


The day started out sunny, but turned very windy and rainy mid-day. But there were few complication today...until the end.

1/ We visited the archeology museum, which had some marvelous reconstructions of the interior wall decorations. To call them reconstructions is a bit misleading. They were built from actual pieces of wall excavated from nearby ancient Roman villas, and only included original tiles and mosaic pieces. The missing parts were line sketches. Think of a jigsaw puzzle with 80% of the pieces missing and a few simple lines completing the picture.

2/After we went to the Roman Horarium. This was set of underground chambers thought to have originally been store houses.

3/ Lunch, to get out of the rain.

4/ The lapidary museum, which consisted of huge stone blocks which had been used at Roman burial sites,and then on medieval city walls. It was a marvelous jump. Think of the storeroom at the conclusion of Indiana Jones, where the Arc was stored.

5/ Finally, a quick run through another church.

Then drove to Arles. A very pleasant drive through an area called the Carmague. But the TomTom took us into the heart of the old city,which was a tangle of narrow streets, one-ways, and no parking. Roads so tight there was no room for pedestrians to get by us, and we scrapped the side view mirror on a windowsill. We worked out way out, and came back into newer city on our own, found municipal parking, and walked to the hotel. We decided to never again ask the TomTom to take us to the hotel; just use it to get to the city, and we'll figure it out from there.

Today's musical segment:



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