Roanne

It is located 90 km northwest of Lyon on the river Loire. It has an important Museum, the Musée des Beaux-arts et d'Archéologie Joseph-Déchelette , with many Egyptian artifacts.The toponymy is Gaulish, Rod-Onna which became Rodumna, then Rouhanne and Roanne. The town was sited at a strategic point, the head of navigation on the Loire, below its narrow gorges. As a trans-shipping point, its importance declined with the collapse of long-distance trade after the fourth century. In the twelfth century, the site passed to the comte du Forez, under whose care it began to recover. An overland route led to Lyon and the Rhône, thus Roanne developed as a transshipping point between Paris and the Mediterranean in early modern France, when waterways were at least as important as roads.

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