St. Quentin-la Poterie: Week 2 in France

Our next stop in France was the little village of St. Quentin-la-Poterie, in the Languedoc-Rousillon region in the south of France, where we stayed from July 4-11. This is a village of potters and every few metres the streets are lined with pottery workshops and galleries where they sell their beautiful creations. The old centre of town is a maze of tiny, narrow streets which were actually quite hair-raising to drive through. These streets were obviously not made with cars in mind! Needless to say, after managing to park out the front of our house we took the car out as little as possible!

We had rented a gorgeous house for the week with Denise and Trent, which we found through Sabbaticalhomes - a great website! It was a 17th century farmhouse which the owners has restored over the years. The girls loved the swing in the garden!

 

The girls outside the house in St. Quentin

The week in St. Quentin was a great opportunity to slow down and just spend a week enjoying the village and its nearby attractions. St. Quentin has a food market on twice a week and we enjoyed walking around there and buying some great regional produce. Our second day there was Trent's birthday and the fish stall at the markets provided for a wonderful meal!

 

As we discovered during the week, there is so much to see around St. Quentin and we explored the surrounding areas on a few of the days we were there. The medieval town of Uzès is about 5 minutes drive away. I had never heard of this town before and didn't really know what to expect. It is, however, one of the most beautiful little French towns I have visited. It reminded me of a smaller version of Paris in the south, with its gorgeous architecture, grand squares with lovely outdoor cafes and some great shopping!

This area is rich with Roman history as it was once an important settlement in the Roman empire. On Sunday, we visited the roman aqueduct at Pont du Gard. This was part of the system built by the Romans to transport their drinking water to Nîmes. We were lucky enough to nab one of the wooden outdoor settings and then spent the day relaxing and swimming in the lake (freezing!!) in the shadow of the aqueduct. The girls loved catching all the little tiny fish that were swimming around in the lake - Pia became an expert at catching them in her bare hands!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier in the week we discovered a lovely little area, just outside of St. Quentin, where the source of the river Eure began. It was from this source that the Romans constructed a series of underground tunnels and the Pont du Gard aqueduct in order to transport the water to Nîmes. So it was nice to have been able to see the source of the water, then the aqueduct and then finally Nîmes itself, where the water ended up! We were very impressed with the engineering skills of the Romans!

 

 

Nîmes is about a half-hour drive from St. Quentin. We visited the Maison Carrée, which is one of the best preserved Roman temples still standing today. It was built around 16BC by Marcus Agrippa in honour of the Emperor Augustus. It is beautifully preserved on the outside, however we were disappointed by the inside which now just houses a 3D theater in which you watch a movie re-telling (in a rather haphazard way) the history of Nîmes.

From the Maison Carrée we walked over to the Roman Arena (rather slowly because by this point in the trip I had badly sprained my ankle and was now hobbling around on crutches!!).The original amphitheatre was built around 70AD and once again it is such an impressive example of Roman architecture. The arena was originally used for gladiator fights and public entertainment and could hold up to 24,000 people. It was cleverly designed so that no matter where you were sitting you had an unrestricted view of all the gory action taking place! In its heyday, the amphitheatre was the heart of the ancient city but over time its importance fell and at one point houses and whole neighbourhoods grew within it. Finally in the 18th century it was restored and bull fights took place within it. These fights still take place there today, as do concerts and other forms of public entertainment (although thankfully no more gladiator fights!)

James and Trent also took the girls on a day trip to the little hilltop village of Lussan, which boasts a population of 80 people!

With that our week in St.Quentin came to an end. Denise and Trent headed off to Italy and we began our road trip over to Biarritz - the feature of the next blog post!