Visiting Vienne

We docked right by a main road/freeway!  Traffic was whizzing by about 80 mph.  Quite the change from other sleepy docks.  This picture was obviously taken when the traffic light was red down the street....

Vienne was a major centre of the Roman Empire under the Latin name Vienna.  It's population is about 30,000.  However, once we crossed this major thoroughfare, the atmosphere became calm.  We will visit Roman ruins that defined the city when Rome was dominant in the area.

The city was an important early bishopric in Christian Gaul. Its most famous bishop was Avitus of Vienne. At the Council of Vienne - in the church pictured below, which was convened there in October 1311, Pope Clement V abolished the order of the Knights Templar. The Council, to placate Philip IV of France, condemned the Templars, delivering their wealth in France to him.

Knights Templar cross in the Church of Vienne (Bob was fascinated by this event and the placement of this cross in the church where the Knights were actually abolished) at the Council of Vienne.

And, I know, more church pictures....but here are details that I thought you might enjoy.

Modern stain glass window design:

Wonderful curved arch accentuating the inside of the entrance doors in the back of the church.  The man in the picture gives you an idea of the scale of this feature.  And the stone floors were fascinating to me....it is pretty in this picture and it appeared that there were shells in the stone as shown in the close up.

Quiet reflection

Soothing warm golden sunshine streaming in through the stain glass window onto this doorway

One of the two outstanding Roman remains in Vienne is the temple of Augustus and Livia. Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the founder of the Roman Empire; he reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The temple was built at the beginning of the 1st century.  The temple has gone through many permutations before it was recently restored to it's original status as a temple. (With the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Christianization of Gaul, the temple became the parish church of Sainte-Marie-la-Vieille then Notre-Dame-de-la-Vie until the French Revolution. From 1792, the church became the temple of Reason, then the commercial court of Vienne, then the museum and the library of Vienne (until 1852), and finally, after 28 years of work, the building regained its original aspect of Roman temple.  - Phew, that is a lot of change over the years)

In ancient Rome, the bull was often associated both strength and fertility, as as such this large metal sculpture of a bull was recently placed near the temple.

The Cybèle garden contains the complex remains of a district at the heart of the Gallo-Roman city (and this current city of Vienne): the forum.  I have to say that the name "garden" for this area was quite fitting as the ruins were  picturesque and relaxing like a garden - it seemed they were happy to integrate nature with these particular ruins.

Although we were not able to visit many of the large wall murals in Lyon we did come across one in Vienne which was fun.  The shadows made it difficult to get a full picture but we have bits and pieces to share with you.  The murals were used to distract from large ugly blank uninspiring walls.

I did find a picture (below) on line of the complete wall without shadows.  So the green door and brown door are all part of the mural and not actual doors.  And a close up of the upper window shows more fun detail of an actual window that was in this particular wall.

Listening to the guide talking about the wall art which you can see in the far right of the picture.

Small detail on the "ground level"

Lynne posing with the mural photographer gives you an idea of the scale of the mural

oooh, I found the chocolate store....

Cruising under some low bridges requires that all the over head shade be lowered down flat.  Side railings could still be up so not as low as other bridges.