Lovely Provence

Hello from Nimes in the south of France. Saturday we cycled into the Provence Region of France and the scenery has gradually changed, and the sun has returned. The Rhône river is wider here as it nears the Mediterranean, and we are now cycling through olive groves and pretty towns with Mediterranean gardens and men playing boules in the town squares. There are shops selling brightly coloured table clothes (no Karen I don’t have room to buy anything), and there is lavendar for sale everywhere in every form imaginable. Because this whole area was a Roman stronghold for hundreds of years there are many Roman era structures to see , if one is interested. My sister Helen is interested so we’re seeing lots of them.

We stopped overnight in the very pretty town of Orange with its well preserved Roman amphitheater that , in its hay-day, could seat the whole town of 10,000 people. The emperors kept the people happy by putting on lots of entertainment . The seating is very clearly stratified to showcase the hierarchy of society with seating for nobles and clergy at the front, then merchants and then, finally, in the nose bleed section, seating for “prostitutes, beggars and foreigners “. The large portico exit passageways are, interestingly, called vomitorium as they were meant to spew out large crowds . Very descriptive.

We took a side trip up to the pretty village of Chateau Neuf du Pape - home of the famous red wines that are bottled in the distinctive curvy bottle. While 95% of the wine production is red (and the wine must contain predominantly grenache grape), there is also some white wines produced. We tasted a few wines and visited a small museum. ( thanks for the recommendation Mac). It seems that every other cyclists has this village on their itinerary so the village square was packed with bikes and cyclists from all over the map.

We spent two nights in Avignon, a much more touristy place than most other places we’ve stopped. It was nice to have an apartment to relax in and catch up on laundry. We also took an unplanned detour to the local hospital as Helen’s cold was getting worse and she was showing signs of hypoxia (or was that the wine). Anyway, we didn’t want to chance it so we dropped her off at emergency and she rejoined us a few hours later with prescriptions for the usual stuff for bad chests. It still sounds like she’s coughing up a lung but she swears she’s feeling better - must be the steroids talking! A highlight in Avignon was visiting the old papal palace. For a short period waaaaaay back, and for reasons that sound very complicated , the Pope’s residence was moved to Avignon from Rome. Certainly this palace is nowhere near as elaborate as St. Peters but still very impressive. Of course we had to check out the bridge made famous in the children’s song “ Sur le Pont D’Avignon”. It’s called the Saint Benezet bridge and had been impressive with 22 arches but now there isn’t too much to see. We got the requisite picture on the bridge dancing.

Yesterday we arrived in Nimes after a side trip to see the Pont du Gard bridge which is an ancient Roman aqueduct that was built in the first century AD and carried water to the important Roman colony at Nimes. It’s an amazing structure.
Nimes has a well preserved old town with lots of back alleys, shops, bars and restaurants. We had a delicious meal last night including a taste of brandade, a dish made with local salt cod. Today we’ll check out the coliseum which was built to replicate the Rome coliseum. The one here in Nimes is actually in much better shape and less overrun with people.

Today is our final day of cycling as we head from Nimes to Arles. We are hoping to get into town in time to check out the Van Gogh museum. Van Gogh painted many of his most famous paintings in the Arles area.
Tomorrow we take a train with our bikes ( that’s always a challenge) back to Lyon and return the rental bikes. By then we will have cycled about 900 kms. That’s enough for me! I’m tired of living out of two panniers.

Home Saturday. As always, it will be nice to get back. I’m sure we’ll chat with many of you soon.
Until then, thanks for traveling along with us.
Love Heather ( Mom/ Grandma)Read more