rodez 2

Ther might be some new thoughts in this. Maybe not. I can't be bothered to check.

Rodez is a city/town on a hill. Apparently the Romans had some stuff here, but as far as I can tell all that remains in town is a small section of amphitheatre wall that has been incorporated into the central underground car park. There was a museum tour of the local aqueduct system the other weekend but I failed to reserve my spot and was therefore grossly disappointed when I showed up on Sunday for the tour.

Rodez is just out of the way. There’s a direct overnight train from Paris, but aside from that to get here requires connecting. It’s at the end of the line from Toulouse, although there is a small train that runs on to places further east. It’s just south of the Central Massif, but not so close that I can see it out my window or anything. A lot of people who live and work here take off for Toulouse when the week is done. This includes most of the students I work with and many of the teachers. Most of the town.

The shock at seeing so many constantly shuttered windows has worn off I think, but there are a lot of shuttered windows. And now that I’m thinking of it the weekends seem a lot less empty now that I’m running along the river path. It always seems to be fairly busy during the day and it’s just the center of town that is dead.

But again I must say NO! Not dead. Just quiet. I think it’s nice, and I have decided to ignore that “well at least it’s something to do” that seems to pervade the mindsets of many of the other assistants. There’s lots to do, as long as you like walking, running, quiet contemplation, reading (perhaps, although I’m still not doing the latter enough and even if I was I might run out of books in a hurry) etc.

So all in all Rodez is nice.