Vienne

Vienne, not to be confused with Vienna, is a pretty town only half an hour's train journey from Lyon. It has been around a long time - its finest features date from the time it was an important Roman settlement.

On arrival we headed straight from the train station to the tourist information office which gave us an excellent little walking map showing a circuit of all the town's main sites. Most efficient tourist information spot ever! And as you exit you come directly into the public park, which is a very attractive introduction to the town.

You don't always see a floral harp....

The archaeological museum of St Pierre - sadly closed

Cathedral of St Maurice. (Did you know there was a St Maurice?)

The Temple of Augustus and Olivia. Amazing to have survived nearly 2000 years in such good condition, although obviously it has had some restoration. Its survival is due to it having been converted into a church, and then obviously subsequently "released". You can't go inside.

And the town doesn't just boast ancient and medieval remains. It  also celebrates  Charles De Gaulle,who was born at our point of entry - Lille.

St Andrews church

Hotel de Ville

We found a very good restaurant for lunch specialising in potato fritters. We arrived at opening time. Within a few minutes it was full.

After lunch came my highlight of the day. We crossed over the River Rhone to visit the Gallo-Roman Museum of Saint-Romain-en Gal. Its a very modern museum - the antithesis of most archaeological museums. Everything is presented in ample space with plenty of  light, rather than dusty cases of archaeological fragments. The whole site was only discovered in 1967 when they were going to build a school here.

The museum itself has many extremely fine mosaics, plus a lot of frescos that survived in surprisingly good state. I just loved this place!

Model of the Roman town

Reconstructed trading boat, laden with amphorae

What made the display of mosaics so fine was that you can go up a level and look down on them from viewing galleries. It's what you can do when you build a museum for the artifacts you have, rather than put your artifacts in an old building converted for use since they couldn't think of anything else to do with the old church/mansion/factory/warehouse or whatever.

While I loved the place, my companions were less engrossed. So they patiently waited for me😊

Then we headed outside for the ruins of the site adjacent to the museum.

The latrines

While these look rather like terracotta breasts, they are actually upside down amphrorae.

When Thibault and Clarissa finally got me out of there, we went for a walk along this side of the Rhone with fine views back to the main town.

Tower of the Valois

Nice view of the cathedral as one came over the bridge

Cybele Archaeological Garden

Ancient theatre

One had to climb to the top,,,,,

The Belvedere just behind the theatre

Our final sight of the day was the Fine Arts Museum. This was small and rather run down. Most of the undistinguished paintings could do with some cleaning and restoration.

So what does one do to round off a day of culture? Find a wine bar with charcuterie of course.