another Patrimoine day

First was a visit to the Hotel de Ville for the free Genealogie research centre.  We ended up speaking with a group of three men about la tutelle/guardianship.  They were so helpful, not only with the information but speaking slowly and making sure we could understand.  We were pleased that our French held up to the task!  It seems that guardianship papers are an exception, they did not stay with the papers of the notaire when they were transferred to Lyon, but stayed with the place of jugement.  So, we will go to the Archives in Grenoble to look in the Tribunal de Vienne or Bourgoin [a town 40km northwest].

Before it got too hot we walked up to the Roman Theatre, undergoing a lot of renovation if the size of the crane and weights is anything to go by.  We walked up another hill hoping to see the Odèon, but it is locked up and not a great deal there.

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ruins of the Odèon behind the wire fence

We had lunch in the Jardin Archeologique.

Lastly, a visit to the Musée des Beaux Artes.  One room was full of Roman artefacts from settlement in the third century – pipes and taps for the water supply, silver plate, etched glass and parts of bronze dolphins found in the river in the 1950s.   The second room had china, Wedgewood, faience, pottery, apothecary jars.  And a third was paintings to the ceiling.  They couldn’t get more in!  We also watched an audio-visual of how an archaeologist thought Vienne looked like in Roman times.  Impressive.