After driving through Vienna we stop at the famous Roman museum that protects all the artifacts found in the ruined Roman city of Vienna. First we leave our relatives in front of the museum and then we drive to the parking which is across the street and quite far. At least it is not for charge anymore, the machines are covered up and the walk allows us a first look at the ruins over the fence.
The museum is split in two buildings but the first one is just ticket office, restrooms and gift shop. No exhibits so after using the facilities we walk to the second building which has the exhibits that we are here for.
And there are quite a lot of exhibits with a focus on mosaics, something we really so we are looking forward to see what is available.
We are surprised at the quality and breadth of the collection and also at the inventiveness of how they are arranged. There is house with the murals set up exactly how it would have looked during Roman times and a wall with another impressive mosaic.
Other mosaics are arranged like rooms in a Roman villa with sitting areas over the restored mosaics so you understand how they were arranged, quite interesting.
And the mosaics continue, many of them have themes we recognize from Greek and Roman history as well as birds and mythological animals.
It is difficult to explain how large the exhibit area is and the number of mosaics and other exhibits, for certain you could spend 1-2 hours inside. And we plan to do it as here we have AC and outside we will be roasted in the heat.
There are also beautiful stork murals besides other mosaics and we enjoy just exploring the large room and looking at the many details.
On and on we go looking at the many mosaics found in Vienna, it is impressive how many were found and in good condition in this small town in France. Of course during Roman times it was actually quite important which is the reason behind the huge quantity of mosaics.
We focus more on the mosaics with birds while walking around quite slowly to ensure our relatives can also take in all the exhibits.
There are not only mosaics but there are also other objects including amphoras that were found on a sunken boat nearby, they are quite interestingly arranged inside a replica boat, fun really.
When we complete the circuit of the bottom floor we find out that we likely took the wrong direction because it ends with a scale model of the old Roman town, likely this is where we should have started to understand the lay of the land.
However there is one more floor and this one has a temporary exhibit. It is focused around one of the most famous mosaics in France, “Rustic Calendar” found in Saint-Romain-en-Gal.
There are some great views of the lower floor from here and we enjoy seeing all the objects from a different point of view.
The temporary exhibit is split in sections as the mosaic represents the different seasons with typical activities and landscapes. The descriptions are quite interesting really and we learn quite a bit regarding what the people of old were doing in each season.
As we explore we find a hidden door with no signs and as we push it it opens and we enter a hidden room which has the centerpiece of the museum, the mosaic of Ambrosia and Lycurgus. It is a huge one and very detailed and we enjoy reading the story it depicts and trying to understand how it was represented by the ancient artists.
And then it is time to find the stairs to go back down and exit the exhibit room as we want to explore the ruins outside.
While we want to explore the ruins we are not looking forward to the heat especially with the lack of shade. One of our relatives remains outside but the second one braves the heat and on we go exploring the extensive ruins.
Between the ruins are also more modern artifacts and buildings like reconstructed siege engines and of course the museum proper.
We decide to make a tour around the excavated ruins exploring the different buildings and finding water features that actually work inside the ruins which is very welcome as it is cooler around them.
These are the first Roman ruins that we visited that have functioning water structures even though we assume that some of them are more modern. We are sure about some of them but the canals seem more ancient.
The city is split in multiple sections including a manufacturing and crafts area that we find quite interesting especially as it has shade. But unfortunately the roof is metal and that is not much better so soon we move on.
And then it is time to start back passing through the middle of the ruins. They are very impressive and we would spend more time to explore them but we are really beaten down by the sun at this point and only want to get back to the AC and shade.
But we still stop at one house which seems to still have the mosaic exhibited out in the sun and not inside. And it is a beautiful one and you could arguably even walk on it. Which we won’t do but we do walk on the old Roman road back to the museum. Where we recuperate for a few minutes and then it is back to the car and then back to the AirBnB after a great visit.
