Provence Trip Sept 2024 - Part 1 St Remy de Provence and Vaison la Romaine

This is going back to our autumn trip to Provence in September last year. We started where we left off on our previous Provencal holiday in June 2023, but it was so hot that day that we did not see everything that we wanted to. 

So back we went to St Remy de Provence and the Roman ruins there called Glanum. I've already written about our last visit there so I'm not going to post many photos, just the ones we took from higher up on the scenic path with lovely views down over the site.

This juvenile Black Redstart hadn't learned to be fearful of humans yet, and perched quite close to us.

I missed this the last time - this is the spring/well of the Roman town. It has goldfish in it now! Poor creatures.

Our campsite was within walking distance of St Remy so the next morning we walked into the little town for a look around. It had the usual tourist shops and was quite pretty in places, but we preferred the neighbouring Les Baux de Provence whose village is up a hill with old ruins above, a place we visited years ago.

We did have a fabulous lunch - it's rare that I see swordfish on a menu. My steak was delicious!

We also visited the town of Vaison la Romaine, which as it's name suggests, has a lot of Roman ruins in it! I'm not going to bore you with loads of pictures of Roman ruins as I've posted plenty of them on other posts.

It's always great seeing mosaic floors, even though I am surprised that so many are left open to the elements.

This is the latrines!

You can see how these ruins are sited right in the middle of the town and are dotted about throughout it.

We also visited the museum and this is a mosaic floor which is more ornate with a peacock in the middle, and has been (somehow) moved inside. It has been restored and the text in front says that parts have been painted in in a trompe l'oeil effect (3D), though it is quite hard to tell what is original and what is not. It's not necessarily the lighter colour vs. the darker colour, as I can make out a painted part on the bottom right, which is dark.

Being interested in archaeology and Roman things we have decided to go to Italy this coming September to visit, amongst other non archaeological places, Herculaneum and Pompeii which we’ve seen a lot of on the TV in recent months. 😄