Thursday, September 11, 2008

The Roman Town of Aventicum

Today Payton and I went on a walk back in time. We traveled about 30 minutes to Avenches - an old city built upon an even older city - Aventicum, the capital of Roman Helvetia. We started in town and walked to see some of the ruins around town. We even searched for and found a Geocache!
The first site was right in town - the amphitheatre. Quite a bit of it remains and it can still be used for events today. In its day it's estimated to have seated about 16,000.
Our stroll took us past an ancient temple, Roman baths and at the far end of our 5 km walk to the east gate to the ancient city.
North of the east gate was a reconstructed tower. It was pretty cool with a great view from the top. It was at this tower we looked for and found the Geocache. Do you see the square holes in the wall either side of the tower? The cache was hidden in one these. Payton kept a key chain from the choice of goodies and I left a 2 franc coin. We had walked for quite a while when Payton spied a bench and had to take a break.
The east gate was on the high ground so the walk back to town was downhill. Our last stop was at the Roman theatre.
This was the end of our hike. Payton was a real trooper and I enjoyed my day with him. One last look at town from the theatre and we headed back...
...not to home, but for some ice cream and a soda. Payton was parched and darn near drank the whole soda himself. Dad wasn't a good hiker - I didn't take any water with us. I'll do better next time.


PS... While Payton and I were out having fun, Kathleen, 'Jack-Jack' Parker and Grandma went to town shopping. They bought baby clothes, chocolate and a purse. Go figure.

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