We’ve a little bit of history with Roman villas in our family. One of my great uncles once uncovered the foundations of one near Fordingbridge, and I recall very clearly being permitted to assist archaeology students as they worked on revealing more mosaics and hypocausts and so on one rather damp summer some 35 (or more) years ago. Thus, having known that there were Roman remains just a 15-minute drive from Les Terraces, it was rather inevitable that eventually my father and I would take a run out to the remains of the Roman villa at Montcaret.

We arrived at the site late one glorious mid-September morning and were, initially, the only visitors. The docents were very impressed that my father was visiting from Cyprus ….. apparently a much more interesting place to live than the Virgin Islands, at least in their eyes, so it was his place of residence that was entered into the computer system, not mine!

One of the ladies showed us the route through the site and left us to peruse the items on display in their little museum bit overlooking the major part of the ruins before making our way back out into the sunshine.

The villa is big, and its remains in excellent condition, in spite of Benedictine monks building a church on the foundations in or around the 11^th century. However, the church covers rather a lot of the original villa site, impinging particularly on the hot and cold baths and the garden.

Enclosed in part of the museum’s structure is the room believed to have served as the villa’s dining room,  There are some lovely mosaics that have been well preserved/restored, though – it has to be said – that I could probably do without having a couple of stiffs in the middle of the room.  I guess those old Romans needed a couple of conversation openers, and skeletons would certainly gt the ball rolling.

“So, Marcellus ….. what’s the story with the guys in the middle of the floor?”

“They were the last people to complain about cook’s spit-roasted lamb, Julius.”

“Hmm…..”

OK, not funny.  Actually, I imagine that the remains were interred there sometime after the Romans abandoned the villa.  I didn’t worry about checking, though, as the peace of the area was disturbed by the arrival of a large group of American cyclists touring the region and it got rather noisy.

It takes perhaps 45 minutes to view all that this particular villa has to offer, which isn’t long, and is worth doing – particularly at a modest entry fee of just €3 per person.   I am rather ashamed that it has taken such a long time to visit a national monument so close to home, but often that’s how it goes. One tends to travel further afield in search of interesting things, when there’s plenty right on the doorstep.  Why, I’ve no idea at all but there we go.  Following our visit my father confessed that he had expected to be bored, and had been pleasantly surprised not to have been.

So, now that I’ve ticked the villa at Montcaret off my “to-do” and “ashamed for not having done sooner” lists, where next?  I think that it’s time to visit the Roman villa on the road to Montpon.  And I really do want to go to Orador sur Glanne, but that’s a bit of a drive from Sainte-Foy-La-Grande.  As this map shows, there are plenty more Roman sites to visit in the region.  We’ll keep you posted.