Narbonne

Narbo Martius was founded in 118 BC as the first Roman colony outside Italy and became the capital of the province that gave Provence its name. Little stands above ground, but a section of the Via Domitia is exposed in the main square and the Narbo Via museum, opened in 2021 in a Foster building, displays a wall of around a thousand carved Roman blocks recovered from later fortifications. The cathedral of Saint-Just is the striking failure: the choir was built from 1272 to forty-one metres, among the tallest in France, but completing the nave meant demolishing the city wall and the work stopped, leaving a choir with no body.

History

In the 5th century BC Hecataeus of Miletus described a Celtic harbour and market here, and an older oppidum stood on the hill of Montlaurès, about 4 km north. The Roman Republic founded Colonia Narbo Martius in 118 BC as the capital of the new province of Gallia Transalpina, on the Via Domitia from Italy to Spain where it met the road to the Atlantic, and it grew as a rival to Marseille: Julius Caesar settled veterans of his 10th Legion here, the province was renamed Gallia Narbonensis after it, and the city may have had 30,000 to 50,000 inhabitants. In 462 it was handed to the Visigoths and became the capital of their kingdom of Septimania, and from the 14th century it declined after the river Aude changed its course (Wikipedia, Narbonne).

Highlights

• The unfinished cathedral - a forty-one-metre choir with no nave behind it.
• Narbo Via - a museum wall of about a thousand carved Roman blocks.
• The Via Domitia - Roman paving exposed in the main square.
• The archbishops' palace - a fortified palace joined to the cathedral.

When to go

April to June and September to October; the museum closes Mondays. Summer is hot. The canal de la Robine, part of the Canal du Midi system, runs through the centre.

Before you go

Very little Roman fabric stands in situ; the interest is in museum display. The cathedral's incompleteness is the point but reads as odd to some. The city outside the centre is ordinary.

Nearby

Fontfroide Abbey lies southwest; the Corbieres castles are south.

Key facts