Heading south from Lyon on the A7, a twenty-kilometer stretch of oil refineries, steel, chemical and paper works, cement, fertilizer and textile factories, all spewing plumes of grey and orange pollution into the air, may well tempt you to make a bee-line for the lavender fields of Provence. However, a short detour off the auto route brings you to VIENNE, which, along with St-Romain-en-Gal, across the river, makes for the most interesting stop on the Rhône before Orange.
With their riverside positions, Vienne and St-Romain prospered as Rome's major wine port and entrepôt on the Rhône, and many Roman monuments survive to attest to this past glory. Several important churches recall Vienne's medieval heyday as well: it was a bishop's seat from the fifth century and the hometown of twelfth-century Pope Calixtus II. Today, the compact old quarter is crisscrossed with pedestrian precincts which make for enjoyable menu-browsing around rue des Clercs and place Charles-de-Gaulle. And there's a feeling that despite the distant rumble of the autoroute calling you to sunnier climes, the town has maintained its character and sense of purpose.
The Town
Roman monuments are scattered liberally around the streets of Vienne, and it requires little effort to take in the magnificently restored Temple d'Auguste on place du Palais, a perfect, scaled-down version of Nîmes' Maison Carrée, or the scanty remains of the Théâtre de Cybèle , off place de Miremont. The Théâtre Antique , off rue du Cirque at the base of Mont Pipet to the north (April-Aug daily 9.30am-1pm & 2-6pm; Sept to mid-Oct Tues-Sun 9.30am-1pm & 2-6pm; mid-Oct to March Tues-Sat 9.30am-noon & 2-5pm, Sun 1.30-5.30pm; 12F/?1.83, or 25F/?3.81 combined ticket), is more of a haul but it's worth making the trip for the view of the town and river from the very top seats. The theatre is the venue of an international jazz festival for the first two weeks of July, when it plays host to some of the biggest names on the jazz circuit.
The Église-Musée St-Pierre (April-Aug daily 9.30am-1pm & 2-6pm; Sept to mid-Oct Tues-Sun 9.30am-1pm & 2-6pm; mid-Oct to March Tues-Sat 9.30am-noon & 2-5pm, Sun 1.30-5.30pm; 25F/?3.81 combined ticket) stands on the site of one of France's first cathedrals. Since its origins in the fifth century, the building has suffered much reconstruction and abuse, including a stint as a factory in the nineteenth century, though the monumental portico of the former church is still striking. Today it houses a forgettable collection of mostly broken and unremarkable Roman sculpture and epigraphy. Close by, is the most prominent - and vaunted - of Vienne's monuments, the Cathédrale St-Maurice, whose unwieldy facade, a combination of Romanesque and Gothic, appears as if its upper half has been dumped on top of a completely alien building. The interior, with its ninety-metre-long vaulted nave, is impressive though, and there are some superb stained-glass windows and fifteenth-century frescoes.
The Église (daily 9am-noon & 2-6pm; free) and Cloître de St-André-le-Bas (same hours and ticket as St-Pierre) on rue des Clercs, a few streets north of the cathedral, date from the ninth and twelfth centuries. The back tower of the church, on rue de la Table Ronde, is a remarkable monument, studded with tiny carved stone faces, while the cloister, entered through a space where temporary exhibits are held, is a beautiful little Romanesque affair, whose walls are decorated with local tombstones, some dating from the fifth-century.
The major museum in Vienne is the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie on place de Miremont (same hours and ticket as St-Pierre), with a preponderance of eighteenth-century French pottery, but also some attractive pieces of third-century Roman silverware. More enlightening is the small textile museum, the Musée de la Draperie (April-Sept Tues-Sun 2.30-6.30pm; 12F/?1.83) in the Espace St-Germain to the south of the centre off rue Vimaine, which, with the aid of videos, working looms and weavers, illustrates the complete process of cloth-making as it was practised in the city for over two hundred years. |
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