Thursday Avignon - Avignon

Thursday 11th September 

We are staying in Avignon for three more nights, taking day trips to interesting places. Because we are staying within the walls of Avignon our mini bus had to have special permission to take us inside and drop off our bags, then our driver Alek took it back outside the walls to park it. We walked through part of the town to meet him outside, ready for our excursion to Pont du Gard. 


They have a centre at the entrance, with a museum and theatre where we watched a short doco on the Pont du Gard it is 275 metres long equivalent to three A380 airplanes, 48.8 metres high - equivalent to quite a few elephants high - I didn’t have time to count them! It is part of an aqueduct that was originally fifty Km long taking water to Nimes. 

We then walked alongside the river Gardon and then crossed over the Pont, ant the top of the bottom arches over the bottom tier of arches. Looking both ways down the river 



Then to the other side and a photo opportunity 


Back over we went, and gathered together for a picnic, which our guide organised for us to try some Provençal fare. 



Breads, pickled garlic, tomatoes, olives, proscuitto or jambon! Grapes, Tapenades, etc we had a nice feast, before departing towards Arles.

There are quite a few Roman ruins in Arles, we took a couple of photos from outside rather than go in, I have seen the Roman ruins in Rome after all.

I probably should have photographed less flowers and more ruins, but the flowers were so pretty. The amphitheatre where concerts are still held.


This is the garden of the hospital where Vincent first stayed after he had one of his breakdowns and cut off part of his ear.

Similar to the Cezanne metal plate in the pavement, there was a Vincent Van Gogh plate leading you to points of interest.


Wandered the streets for a little while, checked out the latest fashions in shutter colours.


Visited the town square and the cathedral, there was also a photographic exhibition in the town at various venues, we got to see a Japanese one but didn’t visit the Australian one as even the Australians on the tour didn’t want to pay to see. 



A mosaic fountain - the water is non potable (you can’t drink from it), a glimpse of Le Rhone river that runs past Arles.


Then back to Avignon stopping at Batherlasse island, the biggest river island in France, 700 hectares of greenery, it is a great spot to get a view of Avignon, and there is a free boat service that runs every fifteen minutes the takes you across this branch of the Rhone to a dock by the walls of Avignon

This shows the Pont d’Avignon of Sur Le Pont D’Avignon fame - although it no longer reaches to the other side. You can pay five euro to walk on it …yeah …nah!


Back to our hotel Medieval for our second night.Note the wee statue on the corner.

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