Orange_info

Orange (Vaucluse)

Orange is another one of the many places we visited whilst driving home to France from the U.K. Orange was the former seat of the counts of Orange. The title was created by Charlemagne in the eighth century then passed on to the Dutch crown in the sixteenth century. The family's most famous member was Prince William who ascended the English throne with his consort Mary in the 1688 Glorious Revolution. Today Orange is known for its Roman theatre which is home to the important summer Choregis music festival. There is also a Roman triumphal arch at the northern entrance to the town, it's frieze and relief celebrates imperial victories against the Gauls. The arch was constructed around 20 BC outside the town walls to remember the victories of the Roman Second Legion. There used to be a strip cartoon festival in May which saw all kinds of weird and wonderful entertainment in the town, sadly this was abandoned after the victory of Le Pen's Front National in the municipal elections of 1995 and 2001. In 55 AD the Roman Theatre was the place to spend leisure time, with many people enjoying watching farce, song and dance. The theatre is built into the hill which squats on the south side of the old town. The acoustics allowed the audience to hear every word, the full capacity of the theatre was 9000. The theatre is a very well preserved example, it's stage wall still stands 103m across and 36m high. Inside is a, larger than life size, statue of Augustus. Apart from these two Roman sites the town of Orange is small and contained between the theatre and the River Meyne, displaying pretty squares adorned with fountains. There were lots of restaurants in the main town area, all offering similar set lunches as well as other varied dishes. We sat outside one of these and had a drink before we decided where to eat. We had looked at the menu's at most of the restaurants and chose one by the daily special! By the time we had finished our drink the restaurant we had wanted to eat as was busy, which is always a good sign. Once seated we both ordered a choice of the three course lunch. We both had a salad to start and then Richard had lamb and I think I had beef, both were served with potatoes (so nice not to have chips), and a selection of vegetables, for desert there was a choice of about six tarts, Richard had apple, and I chose lemon. This was all washed down with a perfectly fine red and finished off with a couple of coffees. We both liked Orange, I think the fact that the sun was out in full force made it appeal more so because it was quite a chilly windy day. Even though we were keen to carry on homewards neither of us were particularly looking forward to getting back in the car. That's the trouble with eating lunch, and that's why we often don't bother eating when we go out, once we are full we like to sleep not drive!

http://www.ville-orange.fr/ Official site for the town of Orange. Some good links but not the best designed site in the world . There does not see to be a stand alone tourist website for Orange so this is it. The site does give e-ail and telephone contacts for the tourist office and also lists accommodation in the area.