Welcome To Glanum -
This is a real “you can look it up”. We had been to the ruins of Pompeii in Italy, so the ruins of a city have to be pretty impressive to catch our attention. We really liked the ruins of Glanum, located on the edge of St. Remy, which is a nice tourist city. But, there’s much too much to tell about the history and the experience, so you can always look it up.
You may recall months ago seeing photos of a Roman entry arch and a memorial tower. Well. they sit by the side of the road just across the street from the remains of Glanum, which Marlene and I skipped during our first visit, avoiding cool weather and waiting to bring the kids. Glanum existed from the 1st-2nd century BC to 269 AD. It was inhabited by 2,500 people and was 7x the size of the portion that has been excavated. Most interesting is that it was a Greek village, eventually becoming a Roman community. In fact, there are a couple of spots where you see the remains of the Greek village below the remains of the Roman town.
There’s a photo of Keaka as we entered Glanum. There’s another photo that gives a decent overview of the what remains above ground of the village. Then there’s a shot of the group on the main street of town. As we’ve noted frequently, the Romans were extremely sophisticated. See the shot of the main street, with pieces of stone. Underneath the stone traveled waste water, while fresh water traveled on the right side of the road above ground in a small waterway. They did partially restore some of the pillars of the twin temples in Glanum. In one photo Marlene is standing between the pillars, and in another photo, with better light, you get a good look at these pillars from the temple. And, there’s another photo of ruins that has righting on the stone (if you take a close look).
Keaka really liked going through Glanum. It’s set-up with good explanations along the way of what you are looking at and you can climb around on the ruins. There was also a small museum/greeting center, which had models of how the village would have looked. Very interesting.
From the odds and ends list – I remember on my first two visits to France (not exactly recently) that most women did not shave under their arms and their legs. I can report back to all of you in America that this has apparently changed. I have not seen a single woman with under arm hair or hair growing on her legs, not that I’m looking that much.
The Van Gogh experience is actually a short walk from Glanum, so that story can’t be far behind.
The Wilsons
