Le Pont du Gard

29 May 2012 Continued

After a short drive from Avignon we arrived at Le Pont du Gard and were given a couple of hours to explore.  I followed the path down the aqueduct and was immediately impressed by its size and its completeness.

As with the sites at Orange, I am astounded by Roman architectural technology.  That fact that it is still standing - solid, without the use of any mortar in construction - wow!

  In my quest to see the aqueduct from all angles, David and I hunted a geocache located on the far side.  We were able to stand in the actual channel of the aqueduct.  The channel continued to run straight into the hillside. 

David actually made the find - a nice ammo can under a pile of rocks.  I dropped off my MN Breakfast Buddies geocoin - hopefully it will move around and not get stolen (it made it Germany but disappeared in December after traveling 1080 miles from where I dropped it!).  I also picked up a travel bug to bring home with me.

After coming back down, we met up with some of the others, but ended up geocaching some more instead of playing in the water.  Found one more and attempted two others without any luck.  Still not bad!  By this time I had forgotten about the museum and ran out of time to visit, but I heard it was amazing.  I'll have to come back at some point and check it out.

For more photographs at Pont du Gard click here.

Avignon

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Today we were able to have a bit of a lazy morning before boarding the bus at 9:30 and driving to Avignon.  When we arrived, we toured Palais des Papes.  

Palais des Papes

The tour was self guided, but we did have an audio guide which was nice.  But I have a love/hate relationship with this type of tour.  It is better than no guide at all - especially since all the interpretive signs were in French, but this type of tour is so isolating.  Even though others were near me, I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone else for fear of disrupting their experience, creating the alone in a crowded room feeling with my classmates as well as fellow tourists.  My favorite part of the tour was le chambre du Pape because of the patterns on the walls and tiles.  They were so unique and fairly complete.  When you look at Le Palais des Papes, it looks more like a military fortress than a lavish estate - both inside and out.  Dr. Wingerd indicated that they did this to protect themselves from the King of France, who had a castle across the river.  Although I do wonder how much of the fortifications was also to protect themselves from the "true" Pope in Rome (remember, this was during the Great Western Schism in the Catholic Church).

Interior Sanctuary

Following the tour, Dr. Wingerd and I got lunch and waited for the 1:15 pm trolley tour of the city.  It was late getting started and was mostly a disappointment as it was hard to see at times because I where I sat and the narrowness of the streets.  

But I did get to see a lot more of the city in the forty minute tour than I would have gotten in the same time frame wondering on my own.  We got nice and close to the exterior fortified wall, into the heart of they city, and back again.  

Because the trolley was late to start, it was late to end, making us late to our rendevous with the rest of the group to tour the Pont Saint-Bénezet (aka Pont d'Avignon).  So Dr. Wingerd sent me on ahead so I wouldn't miss out.  I caught up in time, got another audio guide and headed out onto the bridge.  This audio guide was similar in information levels as at le Palas des Papes, but it also had a spot to show photographs and sketches of various aspects discussed in the audio.  This was way cool, but challenging to see in the sun.  We had to cut the tour a little short as we needed to get moving to our next destination.

Left the bridge with this song stuck in my head: Sur Le Pont d'Avignon - classic children's song that Dr. Wingerd started signing. 

For more photographs from our time in Avignon, click here.