by Brenda W. Clough The tradition in Rome was to bury the dead outside the city. Christians developed the notion of burial in ‘sacred ground,’ which is to say in or around a church. This rapidly became impossible in cities, … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Travel
by Brenda W. Clough We had not realized the Roman site at Vaison-la-Romaine was so enormous, so we went back. Most of the old Roman town is under contemporary construction, but a tobacco millionaire at the beginning of the 20th … Continue reading
by Brenda W. Clough Roman towns were often named after local dieties, who in turn were in charge of the water. Nimes was originally Nemausus, named after the Gauls’ Nemausus who presided over the artesian spring. And today we went … Continue reading
by Brenda W. Clough Did I mention there are a -lot- of Roman ruins in southern France? The place is called Provence, which means ‘province’ — the Romans needed no other name for it. It was their main and favorite … Continue reading
by Brenda W. Clough One of the most beautiful sites in France, surely, is the great arena at Arles. Everything the Romans built here is made of the local stone, a lovely golden color and cheaply available. As you can … Continue reading
by Brenda W. Clough The town of Nimes is spelled with a cironflex over the ‘i’, but I can’t persuade this Ipad to do accents, so you’ll just have to live with it. It was the center of Gallo-Roman culture, … Continue reading
by Brenda W. Clough This beautiful site is not actually a bridge, as its name indicates. It’s actually an aqueduct, a fantastic work of engineering that supplied water to the regional Roman capital of Nimes. Later on, the medieval residents … Continue reading
By Brenda W. Clough Alas! when you say Orange and refer to a town, I think of the exits off the New Jersey Turnpike. Who knew, that the town of Orange in southern France is home to the most complete … Continue reading
Locals call it “Mendo”. I know that because my sister lives there now—really she lives in Little River but it’s also “Mendo”, because just up the road the town rests on the Northern California coast-line. I can love this place … Continue reading
The morning that we left Highgarden I woke up with a raging cold, and tried not to cough my way down to Oldtown. I wanted to stay on the bus and sleep when we arrived, but the sight of the … Continue reading