The Pally Gally (final)

It's la journée de la patrimoine today, so while Catrin was playing with a school friend we went to see the ruins of Bordeaux' Roman amphitheatre, the Palais Gallien, or Pally Gally as it is known.

It's a bit tragic, really. Originally enormous, ( 130m x 110m ) in 1793 after the Révolution it was sold off to put houses on. ( Funny - Bordeaux still has that problem today. ) So now there's only this small section we saw today and the odd bit of Roman wall poking up over townhouses here and there.

You get free admission to all sorts of historic monuments and spectacular public buildings today and tomorrow, but Gwilym's broken toe was giving him a bit of gyp, so I am glad we didn't do anything more adventurous or time-consuming, like the Grand Théatre, or whatever.

I was quite taken today with the door furniture and house numbers. (I always regret not photographing the beautiful Victorian tiles in the porches of Cardiff. Maybe one day...)


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