Roman Périgueux, known as La Cité, lies to the west of the town centre towards the gare SNCF. The main vestige is concealed in the Jardin des Arènes – the ruins of an enormous amphitheatre, dismantled in the third century and now an atmospheric ruin; while over by the train line in an attractive public garden at the end of rue Romaine is the high brick Tour de Vésone, the last remains of a temple to the city's guardian goddess. Behind the tower, the foundations of a Roman villa form the basis of the new Gallo-Roman museum (under construction at time of writing), while further Roman bits and pieces – chiefly jumbled masonry – are visible in the nearby Porte Normande off rue Turenne, essentially defensive works hastily cobbled together to keep the invading Visigoths at bay in the fourth century.The rather mutilated church in this neighbourhood – the result of Huguenot anger in 1577 – is the former cathedral, the church of St-Étienne, condemned to life as a traffic island in place de la Cité.
| 