We’re going to the little medieval village of Vence and then continuing on to St. Paul, perhaps the gem of this day’s touring. And you go by public bus, it’s quite inexpensive — It just costs about four dollars to get from one town to the next, takes a half an hour, and we arrive in Vence. This, too, is the typical Provençal village. It used to have a wall around it. You see this gateway — that was part of the original fortified wall around the village, and any time you have a wall and a medieval village, you’re likely to find a well-preserved old town, as we have done once again. here in Vence. It has the smallest cathedral in Provence, and we has a couple of little town squares, more of these arches across the street forming a tunnel-like atmosphere as you wander these narrow lanes. You notice it strictly for pedestrians. These roads are much too narrow for cars to get through. Of course the odd delivery car might come through, but during the day it’s a very peaceful spot, particularly in the off-season.
In the bend of a pleasant road some thirteen miles from Nice stands Vence, 1,065 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. On reaching Vence by the Nice road the first gate that is come upon is the Signadour Gate, of the fourteenth century, with a pointed arch, and it opens at the base of a rough, old tower. Some way to the right of it is the East Gate, which is much more ample, has a rounded arch, and passes directly through the outer wall into the mysterious shadows of the town. It is credited to the eighteenth century.’ Vence is a very quiet, dreamy place. The town stands on a rocky promontory, nearly a thousand feet above the sea, looking down into a deep ravine.
The town of old Vence is small with a maze of narrow streets crowded with houses of great age. within the walls of the town there is much to attract the student of ancient history. Who first marked out this storied spot for human habitation we cannot tell. We know from Ptolemy that it was at a very early period the capital of a primitive Ligurian tribe called the Nerusii. They had a series of forts, which are still standing, and called by the people castellaras, built in a very massive manner of huge blocks of stone without cement, crowning the tops of the high rocks and hills in the neighbourhood ; and to these they fled for refuge when hard pressed by the Roman legions.
VENCE is a very ancient place with a long history: It was occupied in turn by the Phoenicians, Phoceans and Gauls. But by-and-by the town was conquered by the Romans, and under the name Civitas Venticulum, speedily attained to great importance as a central commissariat depot for the army. It was one of the eight principal cities of the province of the Maritime Alps, and possessed a forum, an aqueduct carrying to it the delicious water of the Lubiana, two temples dedicated to Mars and to Cybele, many splendid palaces ; and included among its inhabitants many persons of high rank, besides a large body of priests and magistrates. When the Romans came they established on this secluded spot an imperial city. It seems to have been not so much a military station as an outpost of the picturesque faith of Rome, a kind of Canterbury in the backwoods of Provence. They called the place Ventium, and some indication of its ancient boundaries can still be traced. It is known to the historian by its temples. Vence has still about it a sense of the presence of eternal Rome, whose sons found in this place a second Italy ; Ventium Cassaris was a military base of great importance in the days of imperial Rome. During the Middle Ages it was a stronghold of the Holy Roman Empire.
It stands on the side of a fertile hill more than a thousand feet above the sea. The site was probably chosen because of the wall of rocks on the north which shelter it from the mistral, a wind that the Romans found as little to their liking as later interlopers. In peace as in war the outside world has never been able to keep away from the Riviera. But only behind the cathedral is there any remnant of imperial Rome. A granite column supporting an arch, and reliefs and inscriptions built in the north wall of the cathedral, are all that’s left. At the beginning of the Christian era it was connected by a splendid road, a branch of the old Via Julia Augusta, with Cimies, Vado, and the southern Italian routes, along which an extensive traffic was carried. Fragments of this road have been found in different places between Vence and Cimies, consisting of large slabs of pavement with layers of masonry on either side, and ruined tombs, which, according to the custom of the Romans, lined both sides of the public ways. Vence was ravaged, in due course by both Saracens and Lombards. It played but a minor part in those later turmoils which disrupted the rest of Provence.
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