The towering figure of a man dressed in a regal toga with an air of authority dominates the central plaza. Yet at sight you land a name to the face, of the ground breaker Julius Caesar leaving his footprint even in these isolated mountainous regions. This is the Noviodunum, the most important location of the Colonia Iulia Equestris in the year 45BC. The land which you stand upon is sacred; the forum quiet so long as it is in session and by dusk the courts will disperse into the thronging city so for now you take your time to drink up the sights of the area. Boulders mark the start of towering pillars wider than the reach of your arms, holding up the sloped roof above the plaza.

Descending underground, you hear the calls of merchants with their wares of clay drinking vessels and copper bowls laid out in an appealing array. Children in togas bound from stall to stall, their fingers gripping wooden styluses to their sheets as the scribble characters based on text detailed beneath each article. Your town wasn’t just a political stronghold but the biggest producer of sweet wine of the finest quality in the region of Waadt and even Genf which lay further west of the lake. The amphorae are just a physical reminder of this fact, the fluted vessels once swilling with the red liquid in better years. It is in this manner that you will relive the Roman rule of Nyon at the Musee Romain Nyon, one of the final concrete remnants of a civilization that had spread its roots to the alps and treacherous slopes by Lake Geneva.