Day 411: Roman Ruins of Orange

Just a half day today, heading north out of Avignon to the town of Orange. Here there's two key Roman ruins - a large triumphal arch, and a very well preserved theatre. The arch didn't take long to look at, since it's, well, just an arch. It dates from the first century AD and mentions Caesar's conquest of Gaul, as well as Octavian/Augustus's victory over Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium.

From here we moved south into the main town to check out the theatre which was very impressive. Most of the stage wall was still remaining, complete with a statue of the emperor in the middle of it. It's not known which emperor is in the statue, and apparently they used to just make headless statues, so that when the emperor was inevitably deposed they could just make a new head and update the statue quite easily!

The theatre is still in use for performances as well which is quite cool, though the bare concrete seats didn't look all that comfortable! You could get quite a big crowd in there though, probably close to 10,000 if you really wanted! Very impressive.

Finished up our filming and headed back to Avignon, where we spent the rest of the day indoors again!Read more