I thought we should have a day out sightseeing, so we packed a picnic lunch and headed for Saintes.
Why Saintes? Well we knew nothing about the place except that, Brenda's maiden name was Saint, it was also the closest large town to the campsite and Dot had seen that there was a Roman Amphitheatre there.
I had picked out a car park close to the river but we could not work the barrier when we got there, so I parked on the street. Paid for two hours parking and walked the short distance to the river.
At the river there was a Roman Arch, The Arch of Germanicus and also a small museum of Roman ruins (not to mention toilets). The arch dates from 18 or 19 AD but was moved in 1843 and was restored in 1851. It looks like it has been put back together by armatures.
I got a street map from the tourist info, at least we would know where we were going now. We had a look around the Roman artefacts, took photos of the bridges and crossed over the river and into the town centre.
Dot noticed on the map where the Roman amphitheatre was and we set off to find it. I had the map and knew the general direction and the were plenty of signposts pointing to it, although many of them were pointing different ways. The skyline along the way is dominated by a couple large churches, the Cathédrale Saint Pierre and the Basilique Saint-Eutrope.
There was quite a climb to get to the amphitheatre (good views from the top though) and then it was down the other side of the hill, only to climb another hill to get the entrance.
By the time we arrived at the amphitheatre there wasn't much time left to do the full tour, also we were getting hungry (we had left the picnic in the car). So we just had a walk around the outside and took photos over the fence, before heading back into the centre.
Back down in the centre (via a much shorter route), we had a very brief look around the place and an even quicker look at the shops.
We didn't stop long to shop but did look in at the cathedral stonemasons and watched the craftsmen/women for a wile. I have done this before near to York cathedral and I suppose there will be a stonemasons like it near every other big cathedral.
We then crossed back over the river to find the car and our lunch. I did take a few more bridge photos on the way back.
It was late by now and we could have had our picnic by the river but we were not sure when the parking ticket ran out. So we drove off to find another spot to eat, there was a place we had passed by on the way to Saintes. When we arrived in Saujon, it was very busy and there was nowhere to park. So we drove on and ended up parked close where we wanted to be anyway.
I don't know if I was tired, hungry, dehydrated or all three but I got a bit ratty when the others couldn't make up their minds where to sit to have our food. I wandered off and moved the car closer to where we had walked to, to calm down a bit.
After our late lunch we drove back to the site, via an Aldi and the most roundabout route you could possibly think of.
Day Eleven or Day Thirteen
Did you pick up a wee bottle of wine at Aldi
ReplyDeleteand beer
DeleteI liked your photograph of the three of you walking down the path. This is the type of photograph I would have put at the end of the blog. A sort of riding into the sunset type of thing.
ReplyDelete