The first Sunday of every month, France opens up its museums for free. Today we decided to try out the Musée départemental Arles antique. Arles is located about 45 minutes to the east of us on the Rhone river. It was an important Roman military center and the museum contains artifacts from the neolithic period through the time of early Christianity. Basically, they found that the Romans had dumped a lot of their castoffs into the Rhone and it all either settled to the bottom or floated to the Mediterranean Sea where it stayed. There is an amazing amount of olive oil and wine casks in the museum as well as an incredible bust of Julius Cesar. This bust is thought to be one of the only existing carvings of Cesar made while he was still kicking. It has him wrinkled and balding and looking quite human! Amazing what you can find when you sort through other people's garbage!!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3932198.ece
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