Orange, Uzès and Sète

Orange was well worth the visit to see the huge Roman theatre and Arc de Triomphe. The theatre is one of the top three in Europe. We have been lucky enough to see one of the others - Aspendos in Turkey. The third is in Syria so I don't think we will see that one in the immediate future! Orange's theatre has the highest wall behind the main stage (100m by 37m tall). It certainly is very impressive.

Unfortunately our wanderings around the site were slightly curtailed because it started to rain. We had had an amazing thunder and lightning storm during the night, and it had rained on and off all day. We retreated to the Roman museum across the road, and discovered some lovely paintings showing the printing of fabrics in the 1800s. We were on the top floor of the buildings and headed down to the ground floor before 6pm when the museum was due to close, only to find that the receptionist had already locked up and was about to leave. She had to unlock the door again to let us out into the rain. 

Earlier in the day we had trekked to a slightly different part of town where the Arc de Triomphe stood grandly at the entrance to the town. However, it was thought until recently that it was originally built by the Romans at around 30AD. Archaeologists now postulate that this arch was constructed 30 - 40 years before! It is seriously old. We were even further surprised at some of the images carved into its top strata. Instead of being the usual geometric patterns, columns or capitals, there are a number of pastiches showing plundered naval goods, such as cannons.

We had planned to have a nice meal in town but it was getting dark, we were rather wet and there wasn't much open within our price range so we opted for kebab takeaways. We scurried back to our hotel to devour them while watching footy on the box, much the same as with the Chinese takeaways last night.

We have thoroughly enjoyed driving through the Vaucluse countryside, and again had a very pleasant trip from Orange to Uzes. We thought we might detour through Uzes, partly because we have read several books about it as it is where Peta Mathias lives and where she runs her French cuisine tours. We thought we might run into her but, alas, it was not to be. A few days ago we were driving through the country where Peter Mayle lives, where he has written a number of books as an ex-pat living in France. We didn't see him either!

Uzes street

Both John and I expected Uzes to be a village or small town. To the contrary, we found ourselves driving into a thriving town, perhaps even a small city. We immediately loved the atmosphere and feel of the place. We found a car park, then the tourist office and sat down for a coffee to absorb the place and plan our next steps. We had originally thought we would just stay for an hour but it turns out there is so much to explore. We started off on a walking tour around the centre and before long started looking in the windows of real estate offices. Yes, you guessed it, we are pretty impressed with this place. Even though it is much bigger than we thought we would feel comfortable living in or near it Uzes has an awful lot going for it. It's open, bright and full of life...

Superb 50s-70s collection in a brocante, including Raymond Loewy steel kitchen

All was going very well until 1982 caught up with us. In that year we left behind a piece of string (our washing line in fact) in a youth hostel in Helsinki. We have not lost anything on any of our trips since then (if you ignore the time John left his glasses in a bus in Turkey but retrieved them from a follow-up bus driver). Well, this time we weren't so lucky. John's reading glasses slipped out of his pocket somewhere along the walking tour. We discovered it when we had just about completed the tour so retraced our steps along the whole way. No joy. It's not too tragic because we only need to buy standard reading glasses from a supermarket or the equivalent of a $2 shop, however the frames were exceptionally light and John had bought them in China and had new lenses put in them in Turkey. 

Anyway, we finally left Uzes at 2pm and had a pleasant trip along minor roads toward Montpellier. It looks to be great country for cycling. There is, however, one major hiccup to this. We encountered serious swarms of flies or some sort of insect. Our windscreen was continually bombarded by clusters of the things, and you could see them swarming above the road and over the crops alongside. They looked like small waterspouts or cyclones. We haven't discovered what they are yet but it would not have been pleasant to scooter through them, and no doubt it would be even less pleasant on a bicycle. They are perhaps just a nuisance at this time of year, but might be typical of this part of the Camargue area. It was after all a huge swamp until it was drained, and there is still a lot of standing water around. The thermometer in our car was registering between 30 and 33 degrees this afternoon so it is still pretty warm weather here.

Our target destination today was Sete. We visited here briefly a few years ago and have been keen to come back ever since. It is situated on several small islands south of Montpellier and comes complete with canals, lots of bobbing boats, rows of cafes alongside the canals and dense 3-4 storey residential buildings in the heart of town. We have yet to explore the latter and have only had time to sup a beer after collecting maps from the tourist info centre and then checking into our little hotel. John is determined to have moule frites (mussels) tonight because Sete is a fishing port and we have been in France for over three months now and he has not yet indulged. The last ones he had were perhaps in 1982 when we had just crossed over from Plymouth to Roscoff in France. Time for seconds he thinks.

Just back from dinner. John had his moule frites, 50-odd moules in all (bearing in mind the mussels are tiny compared with NZ green-lipped mussels. Unfortunately my calamari et legumes (squid and vegetables) turned out to be fried squid rings and soggy lukewarm chips. Not what I expected. Our worst meal in France by a good margin. However the shellfish entree was pretty good...

Observations:

1. The French have real doggy-bags. These are a type of designer snuggle-pouch that one puts one's pet dog into and which hangs on your front like a baby pouch. In this fashion one can venture hither and yon on one's bike accompanied at all times by your four-legged friend.

2. All good boaties should check the gap between the level of the water and the span of any overhead bridge. If not, you may hear a loud bang as the boat cruises underneath the bridge, followed by a plop as the beacon from atop the cabin disappears into the depths. Seen!

3. John has eaten sea snails and seemed to enjoy them!