Roman ruins in Vienne

We woke to a rainy day and the view of Vienne from our apartment was a little gloomy. However, in the knowledge that we most likely will never be here again we set out to see what was to be seen. We came here because of Stephen's interest in Roman ruins and there is certainly plenty to see here. We started with the Roman museum. Here there are the remains of Roman buildings discovered in the 1960s when they were planning to build a secondary school on the site. We wandered through the archaealogical site
There were some gardens and experiments happening to try to replicate and work out how the Romans may have made things or practiced horticulture. This picture shows one way grapes for wine may have been grown up teepee like structures
I was glad to get indoors to where the mosaics from the site were. Amazing, lost for words. I have never seen such complete and large mosaics from a real site (although, to be fair, there are not many {any} roman ruins in NZ and I've been to only a few sites in Europe). These are just a few examples from the many on display. There were also many artefacts and models showing what it would have been like, but the mosaics were what took my attention.
We walked back over the bridge and lunched looking out at a Roman temple
Saw the cathedral and glimpsed other sites through the rain as well as locating the Roman theatre.
The Roman theatre site was worth persisting through the rain to see. It is still used for a Jazz festival which brings 100,000 people to the town each year. It takes 13,000 people so is huge. It is in great condition and as we climbed the terraces I could easily imagine it teeming with Romans, noisy and bustling. Would love to come to an event here.
Just a picture of the view over the town during daylight (wet) from our apartment and me peeking out the window

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