Orange but not as you know it!

Orange was settled in 35 BC and is situated approx 13kms from where we are staying and today there still stands a Roman Theatre in very reasonable condition which was incentive enough for us to visit the town today.

One would have to say that the theatre was in better condition than any other Roman remains that we have seen on any of our trips

The theatre seats 8000 now but in its prime (a fully enclosed theatre with roof) its capacity was somewhat larger. There are productions staged regularly from classical to disco.

The reason this theatre is so well preserved is that it has been consistently in use since it’s construction

As you enter the town you are confronted by their Arc de Triomphe another well maintained Roman symbol

While Sunday is a very quiet day in French villages Monday is not a lot better as a lot of shopkeepers remain closed to give themselves the equivalent of a weekend off and Orange is no different.

After a reasonable poke around we then set off for Courthezon a nearby village to see its sights.

We came across another ghost town but as we hadn’t visited to see ghosts we found our way to the remains of the 12th century ramparts 

and from high up we got a good view of the town outside of the inner walled area.

The was also a stunning neo renaissance castle built in the 1800s, Chateau Val Seille, which had a very nice entrance through the garden
Another feature, according to our tourist pamphlet, in Courthezon is a salt pond so we set the GPS to take us there but after driving down very narrow one-way roads and ending up in the middle of numerous vineyards we chickened out of that, found an area to turn the car around and gingerly retraced our steps back to a main road and from there back to home.

When we got home we remembered to translate a sign we had seen while crawling through the vineyards “Sauf Riverains” and found that that meant “Residents Only” 

Kms driven today: 55