Apt, Le Boisset - Pont du Gard, Uzes

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The day dawned with fog all around but it was short lived as the sun soon burned it off. First thing this morning Lindsay and I drove to Cereste for bread for breakfast and lunch – lovely, warm, fresh and crunchy bread. Lovely. We also indulged in raisin buns.

We left shortly after 10am to drive to Pont du Gard via Apt and Avignon. We went a longer route as we wanted to check the location of the TGV Station for Saturday when we leave. The TGV does not share the same lines as other national trains as it is high speed and direct. Eventually we found it and continued on to Pont du Gard where we parked and had a picnic lunch on the grass.

The area around Avignon sits in a flat low lying area on what appears to be the flood plain of the Rhone River. It was warmer and windier than where we had come from which accounted for the wind turbines along the river. It is a high industry area as well as a busy route to the southern cities and towns along the coast which are not that far south from here. Once again, we saw little in the way of animals but there were large areas of vineyards and orchards. What hills are around are hard exposed rock with patchy scrub.

The Pont du Gard is a World Heritage Site and worthy of the status. It is a Roman bridge and aqueduct of more than 2000 years old crossing the Gardon River. The remains of aqueducts around the region were built to mainly provide the Roman town of Nimes with water in order to give them the standard of living they had come to expect. Water was everything. It provided features such as bathing, sewage, heating, gardens and fountains and one was considered of the upper class if they could display many water features in their lifestyles. The water was diverted from other sources over 100’s of kilometres with a very small fall. The structure is magnificent and must have taken years and 1000’s of workers to build. The museum at the Pont du Gard had pictures, films and descriptions to enlighten us on how the construction was done. Many questions I’d wondered about were answered, like, how did they get huge cut blocks of limestone in place; how did they shape the arches with stone so they supported each other, how was the stone transported; where did it come from; how did they cut the stone; how did they design it etc? All was revealed and it was incredibly ingenious for so long ago. All that remains now in this location is the bridge across the river. There has been a huge amount of work done to restore it to it’s present condition and it was interesting to note what appeared to be ‘old graffiti’. This was in fact the Journeyman’s signature of his work on the bridge. I took a picture of one signature done in 1839 with the stone hammer etched as well. The whole complex is very popular for tourists and families to visit. 15E pays for parking and entry for 5 people which is very cost effective. The river is well patronised by families for paddling in kayaks, picnicking and swimming. All in all, a well worth while place to visit thanks to our ‘tour guide’ friends.

We then went on to Uzes, a former Duchy of France, a further 16kms on. Ray and Judy had been here before and said it was an interesting town with a nice piazza to sit in - a good place for a coffee, icecream and a look around. It turned out to be a very interesting place with wonderful colourful craft stalls to look at around the piazza and side streets.

To avoid Avignon and it’s traffic on the way home we headed south a bit to St Remy, on to Cavaillon then to Apt where we had dinner. We found a excellent little ‘retro’ restaurant called “??” up a small back street. It was chock full of 50’s and 60’s memorabilia – old coffee grinders, muelis, mincers, pans, pictures, photos, bottles, old crockery and so much more. The food was great and the waitress had a great sense of humour with her descriptions of the food in French for us to understand. The duck was “Daffy Duck”, tripe she rubbed her tummy, lamb ‘baa-ed’, beef ‘moo-ed’, rabbit a fast leg etc.
A very good day indeed with good driving by Ray and Lindsay, great navigation by Ray and Judy, and excellent relaxing and enjoying by me.

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Photos

906 year old olive tree
This olive tree is nearly 1000 years old and stands by the Roman bridge

Pont du Gard
The Roman bridge at Pont de Gard. Dates back to 200 years BC.

Journeyman's signature on the bridge
The journeymen (masons) left their signature in the form of a hammer and date. Like old time graffiti.