June 30, 2017

June 30, 2017

This morning we left Arles and drove an hour north to the city of Orange. It was founded by former Roman Legionaries. Apparently retirement abroad was encouraged in order to entrench Romanization of the conquered provinces. And any good Roman city had to have a theater. Orange has the best preserved theater in the Western World. In particular it has an intact backstage wall which improves acoustics. We take a self-guided audio tour of the complex. We learn a lot about the history of Roman Theaters and the performances. Rome promoted events to keep the citizenry entertained and too busy to protest. We could use something like that in today’s world. In the Christian era, the theaters were closed because they had become too bawdy.

We quickly toured the historical museum across the street. It had little of interest. Afterwards we walked several blocks to the site of a Roman Triumphal Arch.

 

From Orange we drove down the Rhone River to Avignon. This city is famous for being the home of the pope and Catholic Church in the 1300’s. We park across the Rhone and walk into this walled city. The Papal Palace is very imposing. We take the audio tour where we learn more of the history of the “Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy”. It all started when a Frenchman was elected pope in 1309 and he stuffed the College of Cardinals and moved the Papacy here. Subsequent popes were also French and they built this fortified palace. When it ended officially in 1377, there were dueling popes for a while.  The palace interior is empty, mostly undecorated and only mildly interesting.

From the Palace we walk up the nearby Cathedral Garden hilltop where we get great views of the area, including the Pont d’Avignon bridge. This was the only bridge across the Rhone in ancient times. The bridge was washed out periodically by floods and now only a short section remains.

We stop for a snack and then do a short walk through some of the city’s narrow back streets. Avignon seems nicer and more upscale then Arles.