Blogs from Avignon, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France, Europe - page 5

Another perfect day – clear skies and not too hot. First stop was Remoulins, one of many small pretty villages in this area, where we had a coffee and relaxed for a while before a long ride to Pont du Gard. Unfortunately, Caroline fell from her bike and hurt her left knee – this was the third time in the past few months that she has damaged this knee! She soldiered on to the World Heritage listed Pont du Gard, a spectacular aqueduct built over 2000 years ago by Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus and still in almost perfect condition. We had a nice lunch by the river Gardonne and then headed off to meet our barge at Vallabregues on the banks of the Rhone. Altogether we cycled 62 kms – a big effort especially with a ... read more

A very hot and humid day dawned. We need to fill this day in with activities prior to joining our much-anticipated barge/bike trip at 6pm. We climbed to the top of Philippe Le Bel Tower built at the beginning of the 14thCentury to control access to the Avignon Bridge. It had wonderful views over the Rhone Valley. We spent some time at a smallish local food market in the town square then wandered down to a large “flea market” that turned out to be hot & fairly uninteresting. After searching unsuccessfully for a shady spot to spend some “down time”, we ended up going back to our car & turning on the air-conditioning before heading to Avignon on the other side of the River Rhone where we found some shady trees under which to have a ... read more

The last couple of days we have spent visiting tourist locations in the morning, and having a siesta and relaxing in the village at night. It is school holidays here and very busy, even arriving at 10am as things open there are heaps of people and lines and no parking. But...everything closes from 2pm to 4 for everyone to have naps - how very civilised :) Tuesday we headed out to Les Baux de Provence. This was an amazing old castle with the most beautiful little village up the hill to the castle. The village was tiny cobbled walkways with shops and cafes coming off it and at the top was the old castle. In the 1400's the Duke of Barcelona owned the castle and area and although not as good as some other castles in ... read more

Apr 23, 2013 Avignon. Our run today would take us about 200km due south, down the scenic Rhone River valley to Avignon. The valley is many kilometers wide in places and supports a wide variety of agriculture: field crops, orchards, vineyards and livestock were evident. High speed trains travel at up to 300km/h between Paris and Marseille. The valley is framed by rising lands, some quite dramatic in places, particularly toward the south as the Italian Alps are over the eastern horizon. Cindy pointed out the Cruas nuclear power generating station on the west bank of the river, just north of the city of Montlimar. She reported that more than 75% of French electric power is nuclear, generated at 58 stations throughout the country. She mentioned in passing that the French have no idea what to ... read more

Hey everyone! Time for another instillation of this blog. This past week was a blast. If I remember correctly, last I wrote was on my main tench day just after my weekend in Biscarrosse. What fun that was. I must apologize for the last post as I posted it before saving my final changes, so it had some spelling errors. I promise you this post will have no speling errors whatsoever. So alright. Where to begin. Tuesday I had my first outing if this voyage. I took my rail pass over to Gare St John (Bordeaux train station) and had it activated. Then I hoped on one of the regional trains heading to Bergerac. For those of you that are familiar with the story of Cyrano de Bergerac, this is indeed that Bergerac. This is a ... read more