Audio Guide Orange

Orange

Places researched in this city

A selection of the 9 places we've researched in this city. The full set is in the Parroo app.

• Roman monuments
• Romanesque cathedral
• Medieval hilltop
• Historic squares
• Gothic churches

• 01

  Ancient Theatre of Orange

  Louis XIV called its stage wall 'the finest wall in my kingdom,' and it is still standing after two millennia, its 103-metre façade sheltering up to 9,000 spectators. Built under Augustus by veterans of the Legio II Gallica, it hosts the Chorégies d'Orange opera festival on the very same stage where Roman crowds once gathered.

• 02

  Triumphal Arch of Orange

  Erected between 20 BCE and 25 CE to honour veterans of the Gallic Wars and the victories of Germanicus, this three-arched limestone monument stood at the northern entrance of the Roman colony, and was later converted into a medieval fortress. An inscription from 26-27 CE under Tiberius suggests the arch was formally 'restituted' to the emperor, hinting at political tensions long after it was built.

• 03

  Saint-Eutrope Hill

  Rising 105 metres above the plain, this hilltop was occupied continuously from protohistoric times through to the 17th century, when Louis XIV ordered the Castle of the Princes of Orange dismantled between 1672 and 1674. The ruins, wooded paths, and panoramic views over the Rhône valley are what remain of a site that once rivalled the power of the French crown.

• 04

  Cathedral of Our Lady of Nazareth

  Construction began in 1107 on the ruins of a church consecrated as early as 528, and the result is one of the more intact examples of Provençal Romanesque architecture in the region. During the Wars of Religion in 1561-1562, Huguenots stripped the interior of its statues and altars and converted it into a Protestant temple, a history the building carries in its scars and later restorations.

• 05

  Place aux Herbes

  Orange's market square has been in continuous commercial use since 1414, when Louis II de Chalon-Arlay founded the weekly market here, and formal trading privileges followed in 1428 after arbitration by Emperor Sigismund. The square once traded heavily in garance, a red dye plant that shaped the local economy before synthetic dyes arrived.

• 06

  Protestant Temple of Orange

  This building started life as a Dominican church in 1269, was destroyed at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, rebuilt, and then handed to the Protestant community by Napoleon I in 1810. The family that sold it to the city, the Lubières, had been expelled in 1702 and emigrated to Switzerland, leaving the property empty for over a decade.

• 07

  Saint-Florent Church of Orange

  Founded around 1247 as the church of the Franciscan Couvent des Cordeliers, it was partially demolished around 1579 by Huguenots for a planned wheat mill that was never actually built. Reconstruction of its stone vaults began in 1645 during the Counter-Reformation, and it serves as a burial site for Princes of Orange.

• 08

  2 more places to discover

  In the Parroo app