Narbonne, France

My first impression of Narbonne: It is a city of character. The old quarter is narrow and winding, with surprising off-shoots. Some streets begin as mere arches in the wall. Most of the buildings are a variation of old white, cracking façades, and some are shrouded with sprawling vines. Old wooden shutters cover the windows, while others are decorated with iron-railed balconies, reminiscent of Paris. Every turns brings something new, something unique.
 
The drivers are all crazy. I once about got hit. They drive very fast, and if they brake, it is suddenly. There are lots of Middle Eastern people. We ate at a kebab shop. Also, there are Middle Eastern meat and pastry shops. The people dress nicer than we do in America. No t-shirts for the women, but nice blouses and a pair of jeans. They like to smoke, and it is fashionable.
 

Place de l'Hôtel de ville is the most lively place to watch people, but also holds the largest draw for tourists. Along the canal, sitting on the wall, are groups of school kids lounging and goofing off. Walking along the streets, one has always got to be vigilant not to hit pedestrians, people walking their dogs, bikers, or cars.
 
It is interesting that everything closes early. By 8 pm in the Place de l'Hôtel de ville all the restaurants are locked up and chairs stacked away. One night we were out at 10 pm walking down a street that would normally be busy with people, and it looked like it was two in the morning, or that it had been abandoned. This was odd having come from Spain where it seems that the streets are just as lively at night as in the day.  
 

View from atop tower at Archbishop's Palace.

Narbonne is unlikely to make anyone's top ten list of cities they must see in France. We came because it is near to the Spanish border, and because I like to explore cities that haven't been overrun by tourists. Narbonne seems to fit the bill.
 
Colonia Narbo Martius was a city in the Roman Empire. Located at an important crossroads of the Via Domitia and the Via Aquitania, it ushered traffic between Italy, Spain, and the Atlantic Ocean.
 
Julius Caesar attempted to improve the navigability of the Aude River, which connected Narbonne to the sea. This made it a prosperous port city.
 

Passage de l'Ancre.

In medieval days the construction of a magnificent Gothic cathedral had begun. The decision was made by Pope Clement IV, and it was to be one of the tallest cathedrals in all of France. The choir was completed in 1322, but the rest of the building was never finished.
 
The city of Narbonne had a change in luck when the Aude River changed its course in the 14th century. Continual silting of the navigational access affected the depth of the waterway so that communication between the port and city was unreliable. Also, Narbonne was hit strongly by The Plague, and suffered from a raid by Edward, The Black Prince. All this together sent Narbonne into a decline from which it never recovered.
 
Now days the cathedral stands as an icon of the city, but it is stunted in size, only a dwarf of a cathedral. The choir, side chapels, sacristy, and courtyard all remain intact, but a stone wall abruptly slices the building in half. Perhaps that makes the visit easier as it is not as overwhelming as many other cathedrals. It is a beautiful structure on the inside. A small, but interesting detail that I noticed was a bas-relief of several men (perhaps bishops) with their heads seemingly bludgeoned off. I asked a lady who worked there and she explained that it had something to do with the revolution. Also, I found some graffiti from 1828. I get the feeling that because the cathedral was unfinished, it was also unprotected for many, perhaps hundreds of years.
 

Cathedral of Saints Justus and Pastor.  Construction began in 1264, but it was never completed.

Bas-relief in the cathedral with vandalized heads.

On our final day in Narbonne, we made sure to catch the morning market in a building known as Les Halles. This is a large indoor market, no different than others in Europe, that serves a large variety of fresh produce. The smell of raw meat and fish was everywhere. Stall after stall sold olives, cheese, bread, fresh fruit, and vegetables. We found a booth selling prepared goods.  Kaitlyn ordered a panini and I a pastry with spinach, onions, and eggplant. We ate outside along the canal.
 

Les Halles Market.

One sight I wanted to see was the Archbishop's Palace. It wasn't so much for the palace itself, but for the view from the top of the tower. After a climb of 162 steps, the panorama from the tower is probably the best in the city. The stubby, but towering cathedral is just a rocks-throw away. Below is the terracotta tiled roof of the palace. The Place de l'Hôtel de ville has a symmetrical look from overhead. It is laid out in a rectangle with the Via Domitia in the center, and tables set out on either end. The people walking past appear as small as bugs. The Canal de la Robine slices through the city, stretching into the distance with a green canopy of trees overstretching the waters.
 

Bird's eye view of Place de l'Hôtel de ville.  A remnant of the Via Domitia, an old Roman road, lies in the center.

I found the palace itself intriguing. It is split into two sections, old and new. Rather than a re-creation of what the palace may have looked like, it is more of a museum. The old section holds several Roman artifacts from antiquity, while the new palace is a gallery of paintings. I especially enjoyed a room that had an Oriental theme, which included many North African paintings from days when France enjoyed enclaves in that region of the world.
 

Gallery in the Archbishop's Palace.

We spent a couple hours just wandering around town. We had no particular place to go, but went where our fancy led us. We sat down on a bench to drink a soda. Four old ladies sat across from us. Then a Middle-eastern man started hitting on Kaitlyn, so we decided it was time to pack up and leave.
 

Four young ladies relaxing in Narbonne.

We visited the Basilica of Saint Paul, the oldest church in the city. The church is beautiful, but quite frankly, it blends together with all the other churches in Europe. Although one thing set this one apart. There was an old man tending the church, and in mangled French I asked him if there was a crypt. A big smile came to his face as he nodded his head and lead us to an inconspicuous door where he pulled out keys and we stepped down a flight of stone stairs to the crypt.
 
This was a paleo-Christian cemetery from the third century. I believe the church was either built on top of the cemetery, or the tombs were moved to the crypt after the city was built on top of the cemetery. Either way, it is very old. He left us alone in the underground stone room. The crypt was filled with stone tombs and large vessels or jars. I'm not sure that there were bodies in the stone boxes because there were gaps under the lids and the tombs looked empty. Some of them had intricate engravings on them. Bodies or no bodies, it was a fascinating place to visit.
 

Crypt at Basilica of Saint Paul.

Basilica of Saint Paul.

We wandered around the narrow streets of the old section for another hour and found a small shop where I ordered a panini and Kaitlyn a crepe. We eventually found ourselves back in the center of town and next to the Canal de la Robine.
 
We weren't planning on it, but decided to take a boat ride along the canal. It was a new experience for both of us and I didn't know what to expect.
 
After the decline of Narbonne with the silting of the river, a major work began to create a canal that would maintain access to the sea. The result was the Canal de la Robine. Nowadays I don't know that it is used much to transport goods from the sea, but primarily for leisurely escapes upon the water.
 
We paid €10 each for a one-hour ride. We joined a boat with passengers from France, Spain, and England. Music from the twenties played lightly before we embarked.
 

Boat docked along Canal de la Robine.

The boat immediately passes below the Pont des Marchands, a pedestrian bridge that is more of a building than a bridge, with merchandise outlets above the canal. Then it passes into a lock. I had heard of these, but had never seen one in action. This is the mechanism to raise or lower a vessel to a new canal level.
 
As we entered a chamber, the lower gates behind us closed. A lady jumped out of the boat onto the quay and fastened a thick rope to a snubbing post to secure the vessel. Then the chamber began to swell with water. Slowly, but fast enough to be perceptible, the boat began to rise. I watched the brick walls of the chamber as the water level rose higher and higher. When the level of the water became level with the upper canal, the rope was released from the snubbing post and the upper gates were opened and we continued forward.
 

Our ride was very relaxing. There were no major landmarks. We passed beneath several more bridges and watched people from the banks of the canal. Many smiled and waved. From the balcony of her flat, an old lady lounged in a chair, watching the canal. Docked boats lined the side of the water, each of them unique in character. Most were old. I saw bicycles tied to many of them. Almost all were empty, although I noticed a few boats had people inside cooking a meal or enjoying a glass of wine. It appeared to me that people treat these vessels as house-boats and choose to pass their afternoon with it.
 
The sun made its way toward the western horizon and all was peaceful on the canal. We found ourselves removed from the bustle of traffic and floating through a sleepy tunnel of trees. This was my final impression of Narbonne. ♠