The Roman Roads of Languedoc

2013 - what a year!
The Association, Friends of the Clos de la Lombarde, only created 18 months ago, became quite active in 2013, with many ideas for events and so on.  At the AGM in January, in the Salle des Synods in the cathedral complex, everyone was positive about future plans.  Then we had a talk about Amphoralis, from the point of view of the archeologists, and arranged an outing there.  (Click here to see Amphoralis.)
  2013 was the 40th anniversary of the excavations at Clos de la Lombarde.  So after the meeting we shared a New Year glass of Blanquette de Limoux to toast the Association - in the company of a statue well-known in Narbonne.  He is called Silène.  I liked it so much because this the model for the statue was a real man of mature years; who was it who posed 2000 years ago?
 

Another meeting On 2 February, we started to work towards the great weekend of 14/15 September, the Cultural Inheritance day at Narbonne.  It was decided to restore the small garden belonging to  the house called Grand Triclinium.
 
 A map and a model gave a real idea of how it would work.

  We also planned many exhibitions for the big day in September, when the site of Clos de la Lombarde would be open to the public, plus an exhibition on October.
 The garden was done! On an open day was held on the 8th of June and it poured with rain!

 We huddled under our umbrellas.                                                  
  Mme Cathala, the councillor in charge of cultural matters from the town hall of Narbonne, gave a speech.  "Never mind, the rain will be good for the garden," she said drily.  And laid out under the trees, the mosaic exhibition looked a bit - sad.
 

 But all went well on September 14!  We were royally entertained during the day. We tasted various varieties of Roman wine, plus bread made to a Roman recipe.

  
  The wine is made from Roman recipes and is organic - AND not too expensive.

  You could learn how to make mosaics, I was fascinated when it was explained to me how it was done, to produce those brilliant effects with some chips of stone.

I loved the Venus and the Christ.  Lean away from your screen a bit, to see them better.

  The mosaic teacher, France Dodin, is well-known in the Narbonne region, and holds classes with the MJC of Narbonne.  (MJC mean "Maison Jeune et Culturelle.")  She runs the "Atelier Mosaique" on Monday afternoons and Saturday mornings.  You can telephone her on 06 68 45 72 61
   
  Then the actors prepared their costumes.  And we watched the humorous sketch they played for us on the new Roman Garden.  I made two films with the tiny camera, very amaterish, but they will give you an idea.  They were talking in Latin and mentioned the name of the owner of Clos de la Lombarde - Marcus Clodius.  The friends arrived - and Marcus was flirting a bit!

 click here for the first part of the film . . . . . . . and here for the second.