In which Sid and Doris find music in the streets and visit Vasionem.
S and D make the quick change and rush out to find the bands’ on-street venues. Happily the brass band is playing opposite the Lyriste restaurant who have an outside table free. The chef is a certified Maitre Restaurateur. Do go.
This group is billed as a marching band (with drums on wheels) so Sid asks the leader where they will be going. The large lad on the left here says they don’t know how to march, so will be just here. (He is large, but Doris’s panoramic picture does him more than justice.) There were some excellent players. Do see the woman with the trumpet in front of the tuba. Top jazz soloist with twinkling eyes.
On Friday the town was very full, with bars busy and music through to midnight. Saturday was strangely quiet so the Festival had clearly worked for the traders
Originally the town was high above the Ouveze river but when the Pax Romana came the town moved down to the river’s and the further bank where the Romans built villas, streets and a bridge that even now takes car traffic. And, in this picture, Sid, with cypress trees behind.
Later power struggles between local barons and church authorities reversed the process and the Roman town emptied out.
In the 1930’s Mr Burrhus, industrialist and archaeologist, bought this large site in town, funding the excavations and stabilisation of the remaining walls. He lived until 1959 and by then his work was bringing tourists to the area. In the new Puymin museum they explain that museums around the world hold more finds from the town than they do. Although they do still have the justly famous peacock floor.
And just as the bridge is still in use, so is the amphitheatre – which they had lost.
Romanesque was the building style when Our Lady of Nazareth was built in the 11th century. Inside the masons’ marks are clearly visible (as they are generally not) leading S and D to surmise perhaps they had been hidden by plaster?
On Saturday night in contrast to dinner at The Lyriste, S and D ate toast with a tin of sardines and a jar of preserved aubergine in this bohemian bar watching Belgium beating Romania (with much partisan cheering) in the 2024 Euros.
