We just got back from seeing the Carnivore’s family in Belgium for the holidays. A white-knuckle drive through a whiteout segued into fog and finally the southern sun. I must admit that we had good weather during our stay until it was time to hit the road. But the northern sun was as satisfying as watered-down coffee. Didn’t even need sunglasses.
So we’re going to revel in some fair-weather shots from our trip to Provence last fall. Saint-Rémy de Provence has a marvel of Roman ruins just south of town. The archeological site of Glanum wasn’t discovered until about a 100 years ago, leaving it buried for 17 centuries.
Glanum was first inhabited by Gauls around the 7th or 6th century B.C. The Greeks arrived in the 2nd and 1st century B.C. and started building. The Romans colonized it next, around 63 B.C. It fell into ruin around 260 A.D. after the Alemannic invasions of Germanic people, and the inhabitants moved to present-day Saint-Rémy.
For an archaeology nut/wannabe, it’s paradise. We were the first to arrive on a Sunday morning and had the place to ourselves for over an hour. The best way to pretend to be Indiana Jones.
The main street is perched over drains the length of Glanum. The slight slope ensures good drainage.
Gutters handle run-off from houses and public buildings as well.
And there were interesting drains. Those Romans had plumbing nailed.
What must the market have been like? Probably not much different from those today–stalls, maybe some produce spread on the ground. It was majestically outlined by Doric columns. Nice touch. You can see one of the columns below. It’s the one on the far left. I was more taken with the “house with antae,” which is in the center of the photo.
The antae are the columns with Corinthian capitals. The rooms of the house surrounded an enclosed courtyard with a pool. I approve.
All those stones, covered with lichen. What was life like then? Pretty tough, don’t you think? In spite of the plumbing.
So many carvings. Of people and places long gone. Did their monuments to themselves make them happy?
Twin Corinthian temples were “dedicated to the cult of the Emperor’s family,” according to the site’s brochure. An exquisite decoration, like a butterfly’s wing, is on top of one, which was partially rebuilt to give us an idea of what it was like.
The photo below shows one of the wine-smoking rooms. Who knew? Smoking helped preserve the wine. Pre-bottle-and-cork technology.
I always think, when I’m in a museum or a place like this, that there’s such an abundance of fabulous stuff, and everybody is so busy gawking at the headline items like the temple above, that they practically walk past wonders like those below:
If this were in my garden, it would be admired every single day, not passed by on the way to something more impressive. Here it’s another rock in a rock pile. Injustice, really.
Outside of Glanum, just across the road (where cars and bikes come screaming down the hill and don’t stop for the crosswalk–beware!), are two more Roman wonders, called “les Antiques.”
Above, the Mausoleum, or Cenotaph of the Julii, from 30-20 B.C. It’s unusual for having a rectangular base with a round top. The base is elaborately carved.
Right next to it is the Triumphal Arch, showing Caesar’s conquest of the Gauls. Way to rub salt in the wound, eh?
Also, right next to Glanum is Saint-Paul de Mausole, the psychiatric hospital where Vincent Van Gogh spent a year. We didn’t have time to visit on this trip. Gotta go back!
We recently took a weekend trip to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Actually it was for business, which is just icing on the cake–such a hardship!
A three-hour drive from Carcassonne, Provence is just far enough that we don’t tend to go there much and close enough that we really ought to get out and explore it more. We’ll share our discoveries in a few posts.
The town is relentlessly quaint. Everything has been restored to just the right amount of neatness with patina, neither too rustic and falling apart nor too new and shiny. The small nut of the historic center is mostly car-free, and it’s remarkably calming to sit at a café terrace and hear the swish of leaves in the breeze and not a low hum of engines.
St. Rémy has only about 10,000 inhabitants, and probably even more tourists. And why not–such a cute town, with beautiful boutiques and chic restaurants nestled in stately Renaissance buildings. It’s very upscale–everybody is dressed just so, and Sotheby’s and Christies real estate offices face off across the boulevard encircling the center.
We only scratched the surface and hope to get back. September was a good time to visit–it was bustling but not as crowded as it would get at the height of summer. We had a hard time finding an apartment and ended up in a very nice, basic hotel (
Taste of France 