Marc and Carolyn's Cycle Touring Adventures : 2025 Tour Day 8

We are not in our tent so the rain and wind aren't so intimidating, but still we wanted some shelter. Perfect time to explore the Narbo Via main museum.

Narbonne was a Roman city, but over the years the Roman infrastructure was removed / replaced / damaged / destroyed. Original Roman carvings and blocks once were used for the city gates, but even those were removed in the 14th century.

For many years they were stored in the large decommissioned church, but more recently the French government has invested in saving and celebrating the Roman history in this remarkable museum.

How best to show case these impressive blocks? Why not a vast gallery which runs along a wall composed of 760 lapidary blocks displayed on a "shelf" 76 meters long and 10 meters high. It totally works on so many levels, restoring in an immediate and spectacular way the monumentality of the Roman city. (That's me, standing in front of the wall.)

Some of the blocks are impressively preserved, while others show their age (2000+ years!). The museum includes a touch screen that shows the 360° view of the blocks and explains their significance. It is incredibly impressive. So well done.

We had the enormous room to ourselves and it's magnitude of size and scale and age was remarkable.

Other historical pieces were displayed in the permanent collection room, with heads, and some headless marble statues and carvings that held their beauty.

There was even a shout out to my mom, 🤣

The current temporary exhibit is a celebration of the local history, mostly based on archeological finds from the sea and the (newly formed) shoreline. Dating back to the 1st century this area was a rather major port trading with Italy and Greece, and with a major port comes .... Shipwrecks. During the construction of the Gruissan marina, excavations discovered super old ships buried in the sand / silt that has built up.

Image below is the ship discovered, and the wine and oil vessels found in the same area.

Much of these discoveries have happened in the past 50 years, and some of the dig sites have now been converted into museums as well.

Marc took a turn at navigating the ship..

And I helped with the anchor.

All in all it was a very impressive preservation and celebration of the Roman history of this area.

And, the Market was on our way home so we stopped for lunch and to witness the fun at Bebelle restaurant, known for using a loud speaker to order the fresh meat from the surrounding butcher stalls, and then having the butcher THROW the raw meat to be prepared at Bebelle.

The man with the megaphone (sorry I didn't catch a good photo of the actual megaphone but trust me 📣...)

And the butcher throwing the order to him.

As we walked home after the meat throwing, the day turned sunny and we spent some time in the little park at the end of our street. It was some sort of outdoor classroom and the kids were learning about insects and trees and birds and the environment. Such a great way to use a park.