The Roman ruins

Vaison la Romaine has some of the largest Roman ruins in France (The largest according to this website). They are mainly scattered over two sites called Puymin and La Villasse. Puymin is the biggest one also spanning the Roman theatre. La Villasse is smaller but just as awesome as Puymin I think. It is unclear to me at this time which parts had to be dug up and which parts have always been visible.

I have made a lot of photos and maybe it's best to let your imagination guide you :-)

From the Puymin area.

I imagine this was some Roman dude's garden or courtyard. In the back there are two spaces with statues.

Here's a replaced statue of Sabina. She was Hadrian's wife, his statue is further to the right and he was a Roman emperor. The real status are too valuable to leave outside and are on display in the museum. Scroll down for pictures of those real statues.

The size of these two sites is already incredible but here you can clearly see that it extends all the way under the modern town.

Romans walked here. A few thousand years ago. Un-real.

I didn't want to do the audio tour, it was too hot and I couldn't be arsed. Because of this I don't really know what I'm looking at but seriously, you didn't wanna hang around in the sun long enough to find out...

So I just phographed everything to take it all in later. So what are these slabs for? Construction parts? A puzzle for giants? Who knows? But Romans made them and at some point something happened that made the maker leave them here...

Inside the little museum (on the Puymin site) you can find the real statues.

This is Sabina.

And here's Hadrian.

Aren't they they cute! ;-)

The roman's made horse shoes from metal, too. But they made them like real shoe-shoes. Funny, but advanced!

It was hard to see how all the ruins related to eachother.

Even telling indoors from outdoors was difficult, if not impossible. To me anyway.

Ah, at last! Something that I can immediately relate to! A Roman toilet. That must've been cold in the winter!

This looked like a cooking area. There is a little "stove" in the back.

Uh, swimming pool?

I got to the theatre finally. The Frenchies really need to also write their signs in English as well :-( I have no clue now and I was really curious to find out everything about this theatre...

It was remarkably intact. Some seats were fixed with wood because the theatre is in use again these days.

Roman or not?

Then I went to the other Roman site called La Villasse. Here you get a sense of the lay-out. Immediately you're on an old shopping street with paved road for carts and a side walk. Romans walked here, too, about 2000 years ago!

Paved for carts.

This was one room of the public bath in La Villasse. I keep wondering if it was excavated like this or if if was above ground or if it was rebuild...

Hey! Another one! ;-) I can totally see myself sitting there, having a nice smelly chat with my neighbour. Maybe they played games guessing what they had for dinner the day before...

The side walk.

Looks like there is more to be uncovered.

Another sign in French only. Grrrr! Apparently this was someone's villa.

And that concluded my visit to the two Roman sites. INcredibly fun if you like discovering these kinds of things.

Back at the camping I found one of these little guys on the ground. Its wings were completely see-through, fantastic! I thought it was dead but when I gently poked it it tried flying away at which it succeeded at the third attempt.

In the evening we went out for dinner in the medieval part of town. it was a very nice evening.

Walking back to the car.