Vaiselle La Romaine

We got going early to check out the market and the Roman ruins. We then had a big drive to do.

The market wasn’t too exciting - only a few food stalls so we went on to the Roman ruins area.

The Roman town covered 75 hectstres and only 15 hectares have been excavated. The rest is under the newer buildings in the town.

We first went to the museum which is in the middle of the archeological area.

This is the amazing peacock mosaic found in one of the houses.

The statues were from the theatre.

There were lots of finds related to day to day life.

The plumbing is very advanced and has the signature of the plumber who made the pipes .

The last 2 items were from 2 large houses that have been excavated - a silver bust and marble dolphin. They even had their own private bathhouse with hypocaust underfloor heating.

The first thing after the museum to check out was the huge theatre.

We had to go through the original tunnel entry tunnel to get there.

The 3,000 theatre seats are all there but the large back stage area is gone. They still use the theatre for events.

We checked out the houses near the theatre. They were huge with 2 stores. Some painted plaster and a mosaic remain in place.

We then went onto the other separate area which had a Main Street with shops. It was amazing walking in a street where hundreds had walked 2000 years ago. There was also a bathhouse, exercise area and large houses here too.

There were more mosaics and flooring too.

We had to dash off at midday as we had a bit of a drive to do. After lunch we got going heading north. We drove for around 4 hours and ended up in Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne, a medieval town.

It’s where St Vincent de Paul lived in 1617 and started his charity Dames de la Charité.

There was a 1600s market hall opposite and an ancient city gate.

It’s amazing so much exists in this tiny town.

We watched the movie Firebrand about Catherine of Parr. It’s a great movie about the improvements she made while she was acting regent with Henry overseas. He returned and then everything changed………

It’s definitely worthwhile seeing!