Avignon to Aramon

This morning everyone was up bright and early as the barge would be travelling down the Rhône about 10kms to Aramon. So, after a hearty breakfast and making our lunch, we helped unload the bikes to prepare for our second ride. Our final destination was the Pont du Gard, a famous Roman aqueduct that used to provide fresh water for Nîmes.

We had another overcast and rainy day, so everyone had rain jackets on again. We headed out into the countryside, our first stop being an Olive Oil farm, Moulin De Romanou in Théziers, for a tasting. We learnt about the process that this small producer uses and tasted three different olive oils. Interestingly, the bigger side of their business is providing the infrastructure to small individual producers and even families to make their own olive oil.

We then headed to the lovely village of Fournes for a coffee and toilet break, and then made our way to the Pont Du Gard. Again, it was raining, so after a quick history lesson from Micky we sought refuge under an umbrella to eat our lunch. Finally, the rain stopped and we were able to go and explore the area.

The Pont Du Gard is an incredible masterpiece of engineering and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It forms part of a Roman aqueduct that once transported water from its source at Uzès to Nîmes. What is as remarkable as the structure itself is the fact that along its 50km of underground channels, tunnels, siphons and bridges, the total height drop is no more than 17m; end-to-end across the bridge, it measures no more than 2.5cm.

The three-tiered bridge was begun around 20 BC and was built with limestone blocks, some as heavy as 6 tonnes, without the use of mortar. The stone was lifted into position by a system of block and tackle (requiring two or more pulleys and ropes), which was operated by an enormous human treadmill. The blocks are held together by iron clamps. The aqueduct began to fall into disrepair from the 4th century onwards and ceased to operate in the 9th century. The adjacent road bridge was added in the 1700’s and the whole structure was restored under Napoleon III.

We walked across the road bridge and also went down to the banks to explore and get a different perspective of the bridge.

We headed back to the barge about 2pm with a 20km ride ahead of us. There were a number of falls on the return journey, five in the last 8kms of the ride. This included Tim coming off his bike on gravel right in front of me. Katie also fell a couple of times, Carol went into a car door that was opened in front of her and then she also went into a wall when Pat, her partner, tried to overtake her. Everyone was ok, if a little bruised and bleeding but, as it turned out, poor Tim (a doctor) had fractured his wrist. This only stopped him for a day though.

For dinner we had roasted pepper soup with stracciatella, salmon with a pistachio crumb and ice cream with basil oil and passion spheres. It was absolutely delicious.Læs mere