There are a number of sites in the immediate vicinity of Tharros that are worth seeing. Two of these are in the tiny village of San Salvatore di Sinis, about 10 minutes north of Tharros. The village sits at the junction of the SP7 and SP6, the two roads one would take to get to…
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Like the settlement of Nora, Tharros was established by Phoenician colonists on a narrow promontory to allow for the construction of two harbors, and ensuring the ability for ships to come and go regardless of the wind conditions. Founded in the 8th century BCE by colonists from Tyre, in the same wave as those that…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018. Perhaps one of the most recognizable vestiges of the Roman era in France, and maybe even in the whole of the Mediterranean world, is the towering Pont du Gard aqueduct bridge. The Pont du Gard is just one point in the roughly 50 kilometer route of an aqueduct that carried…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018 Many of the sites I visited in my trip through the south of France either weren’t associated with any major or extensively conserved site or were the only remains of a significant urban area. As such, many didn’t warrant their own post, so as I did with the miscellaneous sites…
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Continued From Glanum Part I Monumental Area Further on from the residential area of Glanum to the south is the monumental area, where many of the public buildings or the settlement were located. Immediately south of the bathing complex is what is described as being the curia, or some kind of town council or town…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018 In most cases in Southern France, population centers continue to cluster around settlements that have existed since the Romans occupied the land, and in many cases, even before that. As such, Roman remains can often be found amongst the subsequent periods of occupation in modern cities and towns. Occasionally, though,…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018 Over a thousand years before Avignon was the ‘City of Popes’, the focal point of a schism in the Roman Catholic church for which the city is most famous, it was the Roman town of Avennio (or Avenio). Avenio’s history, though, stretches back well before the Romans set their sights…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018. About 10 kilometers to the southwest of the modern city of Caen is the town of Vieux, the location at which the ancient town of Aregenua once stood. While the location of Aregenua fell within the area inhabited by the Viducasse prior to the arrival of the Romans, there does…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2018. The site of the modern-day city of Jublains, France seems to have been inhabited by the Gallic Diablintes people (also referred to as the Aulercii Diaulitae) as a domestic site as early as the late 2nd century BCE. The town of Noviodunum (also known as Noeodunum or Noiodunum, and not…
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Most Recent Visit: June 2017. Though now overshadowed by Palermo, and even nearby Catania, the ancient city of Syracusae (Syrakousai) was perhaps the most important city on the island of Sicily in antiquity. Syracusae was founded on the island of Ortygia by Corinthian colonists (as well as Locrian or Dorian colonists, though they, as a…
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