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.

What you actually see

• 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.

Honest expectations

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.