Avignon and Pont Du Gard

On Saturday I went with some of my classmates on an excursion to Avignon and the Pont Du Gard. It was a great day out, and of course, still very hot. We went first to Avignon where we saw the bridge (no doubt mum will be singing the song by now).. danse sur le pont a avignon... or something. Of course you had to pay to go on the bridge, so I didn’t bother, but we had a lovely view from the river bank and from the top of the ramparts around the city.

I did go into the Palais du Pape - which is a huge old palace from when the popes lived in Avignon - some of the rooms are quite amazing, huge, with vaulted ceilings and it was interesting just to wander around inside. It was the festival of Avignon that day (and the week I think) so there were a large number of street theatre artists, musicians and actors patrolling the streets, putting on little performances or asking us to come to their show. I had a lovely lunch in a little cafe with a glass of rose. Yummo!! C’est bien. The rose is great, and cheap too as it is locally produced.

After avignon, we hopped back on the bus for the short drive to the Pont du Gard. This is one of the most amazing structures I’ve seen. It is a huge aqueduct built by the romans about a million years ago (slight exaggeration - google it!) This particular part was built to cross a river between two hills. It was built to bring water from Uzes to Arles or Avignon or somewhere (again, google is great for this type of info). but to me the most amazing thing (Dad will be proud) is that they managed to get the incline right over a few hundred kilometres to have the water flowing just the right amount. The Pont Du Gard, which spans this river is three floors high and is made of stones. The calculations must have been pretty impressive and they would have gone through a few slaves to get it built I think.

There were a number of people swimming in the river which looked beautiful but as we hadn’t brought togs (try translating that word) we settled for a wine in the shade, lovely!
Sunday was a very quiet day at home with washing, sleeping in, reading my book and doing a little bit of homework. I watched a practice game of polo on my private polo field (just outside the door of my cottage) replaced the divots and had a swim in the pool. Very relaxed and recharged ready for my next week at school!!