| It was one of the strangest towns I’d ever set foot in. But to the woman leading our nighttime walking tour, it was home.
Last spring, my husband and I took a river cruise in southern France, and one of our stops along the Rhône was the medieval town of Viviers. A walled town that dates back to the 5th Century, Viviers has narrow, stone-paved streets largely closed to traffic, steep hills, curved archways, and stone buildings hundreds of years old. The buildings are largely residential, and yet our guide explained that they are mostly deserted, as young families these days prefer to raise their children in places with grass, trees and parks.
It was positively eerie walking along these streets, hearing little but the sound of our footsteps on the stones and our guide’s quiet voice echoing in the cavernous alleyways. She proceeded to show us the building where she lived, explaining that she’d spent the last year alone, as her husband was a cyclist and had been traveling around the world to participate in races. |
