Lodéve - art and Roman architecture

21-10-2010
Originally uploaded by cspatrick

Thursday, October 21, 2010 Day 113
Up early this morning, as I had to be near the Comédie by 9:20 to get a ride with Elisabeth. She and I were going together up to Anne’s, where we would change to Anne’s car, and she would drive us to Lodéve. There is a shortage of gasoline in Montpellier, as the strikes have closed some of the refineries and held up deliveries on the road, so there was an effort to consolidate rides as much as possible.
There is much construction in Montpellier, in great part because the city is putting in a third tram line. When Elisabeth picked me up, we took off in her little Toyota IQ heading for Anne’s. We got to a particular spot, however, and her path was blocked. She turned and went a different way, but this was blocked as well. As she was pondering what to do, a gentleman got into a small van and drove the wrong way down a one-way street, so she did likewise! She didn’t even slow down at the intersections! Then she turned right on a right-turn street, but that made the street two lanes in the same direction, much to the surprise of the oncoming traffic. She hastily beat a left turn on a red light so she was out of their way. Anne called about this time and gave her directions for getting out of the area, and we arrived almost on time with no heart attacks.
Our drive to Lodéve was much easier. The road is a new one, quite nice – two lanes in each direction and almost nobody on it. We reached Lodéve in about 30 minutes and met with Sue and Peggy, who had come together in Sue’s car, Peggy’s having no gas. We were there to see an art exhibit entitled “De Gauguin aux Nabis” or “From Gauguin to Nabis.” The Nabis were a group of earnest young men who broke away from the Impressionists in the early 20th century. The exhibit was good. I don’t think I enjoyed it quite as much as the Paul Dufy exhibit last month, but the paintings were quite interesting nevertheless. From there we went to lunch at Le Soleil Bleu, a local cafe.
After lunch, we drove up into the hills to the Prieuré St. Michel de Grandmont, a twelfth-century Roman chapel and priory above Lodéve. We briefly toured the chapel, which was small, and the cloister, then walked a kilometer or so to view a dolmen on the property. On the way we saw a pair of deer – apparently a fawn and its mother, and we saw a blue heron land beside a pond on the property. The dolmen dates from 2000 BCE.