A great first day on our trip to Tuscany and the Dolomites. We had everything all packed ready to go, and headed off north about 8:30am. We had decided to do most of the trip around to Italy on the toll roads. At this time of year travelling is slow enough already, and we were doing long days so felt our normal habit of doing a mix of tolls and the more interesting but harder and slower roads wasn't worth it.
I had found a very detailed Michelin map book of all France at the Founders Book Fair, and had brought it over. It proved excellent in letting us follow the route, and working out what small towns off but close to the autoroute might be worth a visit at coffee or lunch time. Our coffee stop at around 11am was a sweet little village called Saint-Thibéry, just north of Beziers on the road towards Pezenas. The map showed it had an abbey and a Roman bridge across the Hérault forming part of the Via Domitia.
We imagine that there had been a town there since at least Augustus' reign as emperor (30BC-14AD) when it would have been a camp while the large Roman bridge was built. Back in the boom wine times it had clearly been very wealthy, as many of the houses are maisons de maitre or winegrowers' mansions. Presumably the arrival of phylloxera in the mid-late 1800s caused a collapse in the local economy, as that's when many buildings look to date from.
We had a quiet wander through the town looking for a cafe, finding one full of locals to whom we were clearly a change from the norm. The Benedictine monastery was formed there in the 8th century and was quite impressive, though again very tired.
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| Saint-Thibéry |
We took a small trip to see the remains of the Roman bridge, and found there was also a very well preserved 13th century grain mill beside it. All in all, a very pleasant and interesting stop.
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| The 13th century mill |
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| Old Roman bridge |
Back on the road for the long run to the Fondation Maeght, a fabulous collection of work by Miro, Giacometti and many others, at St-Paul-de-Vence near Nice. We had lunch on the move so we could have plenty of time at the Fondation. Very good it was too when we got there around 3:30pm. It had an excellent current exhibition as well as its permanent collection. A few kilometres up the road and to our hotel in Vence.
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| Miro and Giacometti Gallery - Fondation Maeght |
Vence proved to be a busy town with a nice oval-shaped historic centre. Having checked in we sat outside a cafe downstairs with a beer and watch the world go by for some time. Wandering off to find somewhere for a meal, we agreed we didn't feel like a piece of meat, chips and salad, and thereafter found it extremely difficult to find anything else on offer. In desperation, in the hope of some veges and a filling meal, we ended up with Vietnamese takeaways, but they weren't too flash either. The ice-cream from a shop in the main street helped our flagging spirits. Vence is a very attractive town.
