Orange

Our time in France must be winding down. Today we prepped for the arrival of Dan and Jane Currie, who take up residence at chez Pigeon as we depart. We have moved to the main floor bedroom to make room for them in the master.

\ We posted a letter for Margaret before heading to Orange for, guess what, another market. We slipped past the train station first to purchase tickets for Saturday’s train ride down to the airport. Then we parked close to the Theatre Antique and had a stroll through the market.

I still reflect on how much we didn’t like this market on our first visit over ten years ago. There is a large population of French north-African immigrants here and I think that initially overwhelmed us. Now, however, we are very relaxed when we visit here, although the population hasn’t changed much. It was quite entertaining watching an elderly Muslim lady going through this display.

For Brigitte, the highlight of the day was a visit to the ancient Roman Theatre. We hadn’t been here for years, so we equally enjoyed the audio tour which gave us a quick primer in Roman history and in particular what Roman life was like in Orange.

As we made our way from audio station to audio station, we were happy about the lack of crowds, which I believe the young artist below also enjoyed.

The only way to get a photo of the entire theatre because of its massive size is with a panorama.

A new feature since we last visited was a “Phantom of the Opera” display which sent us into four dark rooms/caves off the interior passage and gave us a glimpse into the history of the theatre with audiovisual presentations, some in 3D.

We saw what the theatre and Orange looked like in 1900 and saw some of the concert highlights, from rock events rivaling Woodstock in the 70’s to opera. Unfortunately, concerts only take place from June to August, so there were no events coming up. It would have been fun to see the likes of Frank Zappa performing here in ’79.

We all felt that for 9 euros, that we got our money’s worth. If we could only remember half of what we learned today! Alas “old timers disease”!

Back at Chez Pigeon, we continued to be entertained by the construction below us, as they are now tearing off the second half of the roof. We’ve already learned a lot about French construction methods - more information we’ll never use. Once Dan and Jane arrived, we settled in for an evening of food - it was raclette this evening - and drink - surprise!