Rue Longue - 5

This is the entrance to rue Longue and the Old Town, from the eastern end, Porte Saint-Julien. You can see the entrance at the south-western end, Porte Saint-Antoine, by clicking on the link. Rue Longue (in fact 270 metres long) is the main street of the Old Town and follows the old Roman road, originally called the Via Aurelia.

This end of rue Longue has been restored but the chaos we saw yesterday (out of shot in this photo) will continue till at least until summer 2008. Originally it was thought that the work would take 13 months but unsurprisingly it will take longer. Some of the underground channels date back to the early 1900s and when dug up, it was discovered that more specialists were needed to put them right. All this work, which is a continuation of restoration of another road, rue de Bréa, is at a cost of 1.7 million euros.

Tomorrow I'll show you more of the restored part of rue Longue.