Wandering the Rhone, Part II

The next morning we resumed our journey.  The Rhône widens at Lyon and assumes an even more industrial and commercial aspect, laden with long freight barges.  This isn’t surprising – for millennia it has been a highway between the Mediterranean world and the heart of what is now France.  As far as possible we stayed close to the river, but our way was often blocked by industrial plants like oil refineries.  As with the Mississippi in the United States, the banks were reinforced by large levees that it was hard to see over.

When we reached the city of Vienne, there occurred one of those serendipities that make travel worthwhile.  A wrong exit off the motorway put us on a road running along the eastern bank of the river.  Not really knowing where we were, we took the first right, which put us on a bridge over the Rhône.  To our right on the western bank stood a large modernist building surrounded by open fields, which I suddenly realized – I was acting as co-pilot and had been responsible for the wrong turning – that the fields looked unmistakably like archaeological ruins.

We hadn’t realized that Vienne has a sister museum to the one in Lyon, with even more extensive exhibits and Roman ruins.  As soon as we managed to turn around and find a parking place we knew that our plans for the day would have to be revised – we had a good morning’s work ahead of us.

Model of Roman Vienne

The museum at Saint-Romain-en-Gal, located across the river from the town of Vienne, is a state-of-the-art establishment, with excellent explanatory displays that take full advantage of a treasure trove of artifacts uncovered in the area, many through recent excavations on the site.  It seems that this was an even larger Roman city than Lyon, a major port and administrative center.   

Because the lands on the western bank had not been developed in later years it was possible to excavate a large section of the former Roman city, including storehouses, shops and extensive villas owned by wealthy merchants.  Many of the exquisite mosaics that had decorated their rooms were recovered and displayed, as well as some amazing wall paintings.

After exhausting the museum we walked the ruins themselves and attempted to imagine what life in those villas – with their open court-yards, shady arbors and reflecting pools – might have been like.   

And then we returned to the museum building for a pleasant lunch at a restaurant overlooking the river.

Afterward we explored Vienne proper, which had some impressive Roman buildings intermingled with later developments, including a church with a nice Romanesque cloister.  An impressive temple dedicated to Augustus and his wife Livia stood opposite a line of busy shops; farther up the hill there was another amphitheater.  We were beginning to agree with the opinion that France has more and better Roman ruins than Italy itself.

 Having spent the better part of the day in Vienne, we hastened to our next destination.  Leaving the Rhône, we drove southeast to the Côtes du Rhône region where we planned to spend some time getting reacquainted with our favorite wines.   During our last visit to Provence several years ago, we happened to drive by the Hôtel Les Florets, an attractive country hotel in the foothills of the Dentelles de Montmirail above the village of Gigondas.  We had reserved a table on the terrace overlooking vine-covered hillsides and had one of the most memorable dinners of our lives.  So, while planning our Rhône adventure we were determined to return and stay there.

We were not disappointed.  Even though the weather was a bit rainy and cool, the hotel was a perfect place to reconnect with the Provençal countryside that we love, with its dry pine-covered hills that always remind me of southern California.   The hotel’s terrace with its stunning views was the perfect place for a pre-dinner aperitif, even if it was too cool to eat outside.  The food was every bit as good as we’d remembered, and we enjoyed the chance to explore further its extensive wine list.  We picked the brains of the sommelier, who happened to be the innkeeper who had checked us in and who we met again the next day cleaning the swimming pool.  Foremost among our discoveries was how much we enjoyed the Muscat grown in nearby Beaumes-de-Venise, even though we’d never liked sweet wines before.

The next day was Sunday, and because of our experience with Switzerland’s strict Sunday closing laws we were afraid we would miss the chance to visit the local wine cellars.  Hence we were pleased to find that all the shops in Gigondas would open for business after lunch.  After a walk through the hilltop village we had a tasting-menu lunch (a series of small tapas-style bites paired with different wines) and visited a number of caveaus to partake of free samples of their wares.  We came away with quite a nice collection for our cellar.

On Monday we were back on the road, returning to the Rhône after a swing through Beaumes-de-Venise to pick up some of the afore-mentioned Muscat.  We passed by the city of Avignon, site of the Papal palace for much of the 14^th century, but didn’t stop because we’d visited before in long-ago graduate student days.  Once more we diverged from the river to head toward the town of St. Rémy-de-Provence where another major Roman site awaited us. 

Hard on the heels of our tours of Lyon and Vienne, our visit to the ruins of the city of Glanum firmly cemented our understanding of the sweep and power of the Roman world in this part of France.  Glanum was founded in the 6^th century BC by a Celto-Ligurian tribe on the site of a healing spring in the foothills of the Alpilles; beside the spring was a shrine to the Celtic god Glanis.  Trade with the Greek colony of Marseilles about 90 kilometers to the south brought Hellenistic influences that can be seen in remains of houses, shops and shrines.  In the 1^st century BC the Romans attacked and leveled these and gradually reconstructed the city in their image.   

They erected a massive triumphal arch at the entrance to the city near the end of the reign of Augustus – it clearly promotes acculturation to the Roman way by contrasting Celts in chains with free men in Roman garb.  Nearby is a monumental mausoleum to the Julii family.  Within the city itself the Romans constructed ever-larger buildings – a forum, baths, temples – atop the ruins of the previous buildings. 

In turn, however, the city was overrun by the Alamanni in 260 AD and subsequently abandoned.  Over the centuries its buildings were dismantled to provide stones for a new village on the plain that became St. Rémy.  Only the monuments on the edge of the city survived; known as “Les Antiques” they became a must-see for travelers on the Grand Tour.  In the 1920s, sustained archaeological excavations began to decipher the layers of previous civilizations.

Today the ruins stand in a large sun-baked park flanked on one side by an olive grove and on the other by the rocky outcroppings of the Alpilles.  It was hot but fascinating work to move back and forth between the Celtic, Hellenic and Roman layers.  Surrounded by the dry crags of the hills the area seemed to exist in a dimension beyond time.

Yet once we had finished there was little time left to visit the other attraction standing on the other side of the olive grove – the Monastery of St. Paul-de-Mausole, with its attached mental hospital where Vincent van Gogh resided for a year near the end of his life.  The site draws many visitors eager to view the room where he ostensibly lived, but it is a reconstruction.  We were actually more interested in visiting the Monastery’s Romanesque church and cloister.  But as we left the sight of olive trees in late-afternoon light reminded us of the source of some of van Gogh’s work during his stay.

Our hotel afforded a wonderful view of the Alpilles and we enjoyed exploring the old town with its maze of narrow streets encircled by a broad café-lined boulevard.  During our two nights there we had pleasant dinners but enjoyed most the time spent sitting at a café under the stars.

But we still had yet to complete our mission to follow the Rhône to its end.  On our last day before returning home we drove through the Alpilles, past the impressive cliff-top castle ruins of Les Baux, to rejoin the Rhône at Arles.  As it nears the Mediterranean, the river divides into two branches (the large and small), the land in between a large marshy delta called the Camargue.  Parts of the wetlands have been turned into rice fields, and there are vast evaporation beds from which sea salt is extracted.  But much of the area is a protected Nature Park where wildlife flourishes, from flamingos and wild boars to white horses.

We stayed with the Grand Rhône on the eastern edge of the Camargue, intent on finding the point where it entered the sea.   

But we began to realize that this wasn’t going to be so easily done, because our road diverged to the west and ended at a broad beach a couple of miles from the river.  Having been assured by a guide at a local nature area that we could walk to the river from there, we parked the car and set out eastward on foot.

The Mediterranean was as blue as I remembered but a strong wind was blowing from the west and few others had ventured out.  We passed a ghost city of campers that seemed permanently installed on the beach, waiting for the weekend or summer vacation for their owners to return.

After we had walked along the beach for about a mile, we encountered another challenge to our mission, in the form of a large warning sign:

Nudist Beach: Here one lives nude

It seems that the rest of the area was reserved for nudists.  Alarmed, we debated the wisdom of continuing.  But, seeing that there were few people around we decided to venture forth, keeping our eyes averted when necessary.   

It turned out that there were only a few nudists intrepid enough to swim on such a blustery day.  Eventually we finally reached the end of the camping city.  Climbing some large sand dunes we were able to survey the last marshy expanse of the river before it disappeared into the sea.

Feeling satisfied that we had done what we set out to do, we returned to St. Rémy for the night and drove back to Switzerland the next day.  Because I was feeling homesick for the mountains we headed northwest into the French Alps.  We lunched in the charming city of Gap and passed through Grenoble on our way home.

I’m not sure I can say that we learned a particular lesson in tracing the Rhône from its origin in an Alpine glacier to its end.  But in the process we gained further appreciation for the many-layered history of the region – and a nice little collection of Côtes du Rhône wine.

In Which We Wander the Rhone, Part I

It all began on a rainy Saturday a bit over a year ago, when The Spouse and I decided to head south and see what we could find.  We drove over the awesome Furka Pass and on the downward side stopped to take in the view of the Rhone Gletscher, source of the Rhone River.  We knew it from our visits to southern France and marveled here at how that major river had its beginnings in an Alpine torrent.

 

Then and there was born the idea of following the Rhone from its beginnings all the way to its end in the Mediterranean Sea.  It would be a perfect fusion of a number of our favorite things: travel, history – because the Rhone has been an important highway since well before the Romans conquered Gaul – and wine.  The Côtes du Rhône in Provence is our favorite French wine region and we would be happy for any excuse to visit there again – even if it technically is a bit east of the actual river.

Nor did it need to be some grueling long distance trek.  We could easily cover the first section from the origin to Lake Geneva during other travels around Switzerland and then leave the rest for a specially planned trip.

So, that first weekend we continued to follow the Rhone as, engorged with recent rains, it surged through a mountain valley that gradually widened into the German-speaking area known as the Goms, the easternmost section of the Swiss canton of Wallis (in German) or Valais (in French).   

The Goms was populated by small villages featuring rough wooden barns, and the usual complement of red geraniums.

Gradually the valley widened into one of the broadest in Switzerland and fields dotted with grazing cows gave way to large vineyards covering south-facing hillsides.  Not surprisingly, it was at this point that the language switched from German to French.

 That weekend, it was also at this point that we left the Rhone to explore the Lötschental, a valley stretching northward.  The next day we hiked up to the glacier at its end, part of the massive Jungfrau-Aletsch glacier system that stretches north between the Valais and the area of the Alps known as the Bernese Oberland.  

View from our hotel

Over succeeding months we returned to Valais several times.   Once we explored the Val D’Herens, another valley opening to the south that ends at a village named Arolla with stunning mountain vistas.  

Descending into Valais

In January we crossed the Rhone again en route to Zermatt.   We have also enjoyed several pleasant visits to Sion, capital of the Canton of Valais and a center of power in the area since Romans established a settlement named Sedunum in the 1^st century A.D.  Later it was the seat of a bishopric that ruled the area until modern times.

Further to the southwest at Martigny the Rhone runs up against the mountains and turns northward.   A meeting point for routes from Italy via the St. Bernard Pass and from France past Mont Blanc, Martigny has been an important crossroads since it was founded by the Romans about 16 A.D.  When I was in the U.S. last spring The Spouse made another visit to check out Martigny’s Roman ruins. 

After Martigny the Rhone runs north-north-westward for about 20 miles until it debouches into Lake Geneva, Lac Léman to the French.    

View of North Shore from Evian

As a river and a lake it is surrounded by some of the most famous vineyards in Switzerland.  The hills that rise gradually from the north shore are covered with hundreds of small family vineyards, while the sunny shoreline is known as Switzerland’s Riviera, marked by cosmopolitan resort cities like Montreux and Vevey.   

Statue of Freddie Mercury in Montreux

The area has long been a favorite of European artistic types, including Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin in the early 19^th century and Charlie Chaplin and Freddie Mercury in the 20^th century.  Chaplin is buried in Vevey and Mercury in Montreux; each town remembers its famous resident with a statue in their public square. 

View of Evian from Montreux

The mountains rise more abruptly on the south shore, much of which is in France.  Last summer we stopped for lunch in the charming resort town of Evian and felt instantly the culinary difference between Switzerland and France.

Sitting at a strategic point on the eastern shore of the lake is the Château de Chillon, an amazing 13^th century castle that is one of the most perfectly preserved castles anywhere.  Built by the Dukes of Savoy to protect trade routes between northern and southern Europe, it was captured by the Bernese in the 16^th century.   

That was in the middle of the wars resulting from the Protestant Reformation, and in the dark dungeon at the castle’s base was chained a Protestant named François de Bonivard.  When Byron visited the dungeon he was so moved by the direness of the environment that he was inspired to write his poem The Prison of Chillon.  When one visits it isn’t hard to see why – the dark, dank cavern epitomizes the Romantic vision of the plight of the imprisoned hero.

On the far, western side of Lake Geneva stands the French-speaking city of Geneva.  It was a center of the Reformation under Jean Calvin and attracted a commercial and cosmopolitan character that has only grown in recent years as it hosts many arms of the United Nations, international NGOs and CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics.  It also has perhaps the most attractive waterfront in all Switzerland, a land that has so many beautiful lakeside cities.

And just like Luzern and Zürich, Geneva is sited where the principal river flows out of (rather than into) the lake.  It passes under a broad bridge bedecked with United Nation flags and past several attractive islands on its way westward toward France.

  

And in June that’s about where we rejoined the Rhone to complete our mission to follow the river to its end.  We left the major motorway, the better to follow the Rhône (its French spelling) as it meandered westward through a countryside of rolling hills and farms. 

At one point where it passed through a steep valley we stopped to survey a hydroelectric dam, reflecting its increasingly industrial character.

At length, we reached Lyon, France’s second-largest city and our first day’s goal.  Though I’ve been to France quite a few times, and The Spouse spent a few days in Lyon doing research in a previous incarnation as an academic, we knew little about the city and were looking forward to exploring it.  After a bit of difficulty getting into the city during rush hour, complicated by construction detours of which our GPS was unaware, we found our hotel.  It was located in the heart of the city, which lies between two rivers, the Rhône and the Saône, that ultimately converge south of the city.

Our first goal was to sample some of the Lyonnaise cuisine for which the city is famous.  We walked to the Brasserie George, a huge establishment that has been in business since 1836.  Though it was a bit touristy, we enjoyed the 1920s art-deco décor and the efficiency of the waiting staff, dressed in their traditional white shirts, black trousers and white aprons – though now quite a number were women.  Going to the traditional Lyonnaise section of the menu, I ordered the andouillette in a Dijon sauce.  When it arrived it was a sausage loosely containing some rubbery meat, in a thick cream sauce.  Later when we looked it up we discovered that the filling was chopped pig intestines, marinated and sautéd in red wine.  It wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I’ll have it again.

Day two of the Great Rhône journey was devoted to exploring Lyon and its history.  Our first stop was the marvelous Musée de la Civilisation Gallo-Romaine, perched on the Fourvière hillside next to a Roman theater that had stood at the center of the city of Lugdunum, center of the Roman colony of Gaul.  We enjoyed pouring over the collections of artifacts and then wandering through the grounds of the theater, now being used for a summer music festival.  In the afternoon we visited the Old City on the banks of the river, whose charming medieval architecture had been restored and prettied up in recent years.

Former Factory Section

In the Musée Gadagne, the city history museum housed in a marvelous 16^th century mansion, we learned much more about the development of textile factories that dominated Lyon’s economy for centuries.  When these declined in the 20^th century the city struggled like so many industrial cities.  Only recently has the process of urban revitalization begun to turn the old factories and workers’ housing into condos.

The 19th century city lies on the Presqu’île between the two rivers.  In the large plaza next to the Hôtel de Ville stands a marvellous fountain sculpted by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, who also created the Statue of Liberty.  Its four horses symbolize rivers galloping towards the sea, an appropriate reminder of our journey.

Chez Hugon

On our second evening we managed to grab the last available table at Chez Hugon, a tiny bouchon near the Hotel de Ville.  A bouchon is a type of restaurant for which Lyon is famous, based on the tradition of workingmen’s cafes.  They feature hearty dishes similar to my andouilette, that use simple and fresh ingredients and the cheaper cuts of meat with creamy sauces.  Steering clear of the pig’s intestines, I had gateau de volaille (chicken liver cake) and TS had quenelles (ground fish dumplings); we agreed that though both were tasty they were a bit too heavy for repeated consumption.  Above all, we loved the intimacy and comraderie of the tiny place – we counted 36 seats in all – presided over by Madame Hugon herself.

[To be continued]