After yesterday's post full of sweets, it's time to go for a walk and use up all those extra calories we took in. Good plan, but the only thing is that I somehow messed up the time. This walk happened at the end of July.
No pasa nada, as the Spanish people would say.
But, I messed up the place too. We are located in France, In Narbonne. You saw it too, the letters decorated with flowers confirmed it.
I hope this little turbulence will not cause a lot of problems and that you will join me on this walk.
First, we parked in an underground parking lot, close to the centre. We figured out it would be better to go for that option, not to pay any fine for parking incorrectly. In the blink of an eye, we found ourselves walking through this street.
We were just one corner away from the historic centre of the city. We passed by Narbonne many times, but this was the first time we stayed here to sleep and take a walk. We were also looking for a place to have dinner, which in the end turned out... well, it turned out that we chose a restaurant that did not meet our expectations.
My weakness - cathedrals! Every time we visit a new place, I want to find the main church or the cathedral. My husband already knows it and he doesn't even try to shift my focus to other things. My theory is: If I don't see the cathedral, I haven't visited that city. 😂
But why would we miss an opportunity to stand by a huge building like this one, and contemplate its greatness? Oh, well... maybe it is just as we are too small.
After seeing the Cathedral of Narbonne (Cathédrale Saint-Just et Saint-Pasteur) from this angle we continued. I didn't have a map with me but it was easy to follow the path that these ancient stone buildings showed. It was the street Gustave Fabre that we took and passed by Archevêché Garden.
It was closed at the time we walked there... I just peeked through the fence and saw these nicely trimmed bushes.
We turned to the left, into the street Jean Jaurés. Big flower constructions were placed throughout the whole street like this one:
Just a confirmation that we were walking in the right direction - to the Palace of the Archbishops. That is what we would see if I would have a drone. But I don't have any, so just a photo of this poster can help us see the roofs of the palace.
The main facade of the palace was also decorated with flowers. Maybe it was an outdoor exposition or the city just celebrated something so that was the reason for this decoration, I didn't look for further information at that moment.
My boys were reading the menu of the restaurants (as you remember, we were also looking for a place to have dinner) but I had a wonderful idea {as all my ideas are lol}. To enter this passage. It seemed interesting...
However, this adventure didn't last for a long time. It was a "passage" with no exit on the other side. Those people also wanted to live the same adventure, but unfortunately, we all had to accept the fate that we were in the wrong place for that. 😂
The only thing I could do was to turn back and find myself again on the same square where this adventure-not-adventure started.
There I saw a map of the city centre and saw there was a Roman Granary Museum. We tried to make a plan, what places to visit quickly and in the end, to get back for dinner.
This street took us to the Roman Granary Museum but when we arrived there, it was closed. Of course it was, we were late for all the museums as this walk took place in the late afternoon.
But another little detail reminded us about the Romans. I saw the bronze sculpture of the famous wolf and the brothers Romulus and Remus! I couldn't believe that Capitoline Wolf was here! You can imagine the great surprise and excitement I felt... until I found out it was just a replica of the original sculpture. Obviously, you can find many other replicas like this one all over the world.
Still circling around the streets of the city centre we came across the cathedral once again. Nothing to worry about, we love to see it. And use the opportunity to take another photo of it, now from the other side of it.
But then I indeed had to find that adventure in Narbonne! This walk couldn't finish just in this way. We passed by another, smaller church, but it also seemed very old. Next to it, there was a cloister. Nothing special, if you see it from the street. A concrete wall and bars.
The gate was slightly open. If you noticed there was a rolled-up newspaper, holding the gate. So, I entered and hoped nobody would notice my presence inside and take away the newspaper. Then I would be locked in there, forever. 😂
I took a short self-guided tour on the patio of the cloister and luckily no one was around to scold me for entering or convert me into a nun. My boys didn't even know where I was.
Mission accomplished - a little adventure was found and carried out without issues.
The dinner had many issues though. I already told the story about it here - open the link only if you are interested to read a rant haha. Better to skip it.
After it, we headed toward the river and crossed an old stone bridge, without searching for more adventures, but saying goodbye to the city centre of Narbonne. We went back to hotel to sleep and continue our journey toward Spain the next morning.
