Orange

May 16, 2001

Orange is a town deep in Provence, about 2 hours drive from Mandelieu-la-Napoule. It is probably most famous for ancient Roman theater that dates back 2000 years, to around the birth of you-know-who. It was a wonderful looking place and would be fun to spend more time at. We visited Orange with our friends Andy and Angela. We had gone to Châteauneuf-du-Pape earlier in the day, and so didn't have much time in Orange. But enough to visit the Roman ruins, which were quite awe inspiring. Here are the pictures.

As we mentioned, this Roman era theater is about 2000 years old. The stage you see in the picture is modern, as are the dancers on it. The theater is still used to this very day. But the walls, columns, and statue of Augustus Caesar are all original. The theater is a hemi-circle and you come walking out of a tunnel to get to your seats and this is the very first thing you see. It was cool walking down the tunnel because you could just imagine a bunch of Centurions stomping down the hall chasing some hooligans out of the days feeding of the Christians to the lions. It was very awe inspiring.

Here is a close up of the back wall with the statue of Caesar. To me, it looks like Caesar is flipping the bird to the Saracens or Phoenicians (I really don't know my Roman history), but he is really waving at the crowd in the theater.

Here are three pictures from different parts of the theater. In the first, Patti is sitting in the stands looking up at the statue of Caesar. The second is of Steve by the columns looking up at Patti. The third is of Jeff holding up one of the old columns while the workmen applied more Elmer's Glue, which is what holds all of this together.

Some more miscellaneous pictures from the ruins.

Finally, it wouldn't be trip with Andrew if there wasn't some kind of silliness. So here Andrew and Steve are accepting acclaim from the crowd.

Last Updated Saturday May 19, 2001 17:33pm CET