Summary
Why come to the French Riviera and Provence in April? The weather is gorgeous, cool crisp mornings with high in the 70s. In bloom are chestnut, black locust and fruit trees, roses, lilacs, irises, red poppies and more! No notes, would highly recommend! Today, despite all agreeing we had seen enough Roman ruins to last a while, we visited the Pont du Gard, a massive 3-level Roman aqueduct from the 1st century AD which rises 160 feet above the Gardon River. Picnicked on the grounds then visited our favorite wine store, the Cave du Lumières, for a rosé tasting (and purchase). Pool(side) time, happy hour then excellent dinner at a nearby restaurant, l’Estellan.
Details
Today is another driving day. We’re off to visit the Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct (viaduct?) from the first century AD, so like 1,900 years ago. As is our custom we’re up and off to breakfast quickly and enjoying madame’s bountiful spread. With Karen’s need for protein and aversion to sugar and starch madame has graciously agreed to cook two hard boiled eggs and they’re ready when Karen arrives.
It’s another pretty day for a drive and soon we’re looping around roundabout after roundabout. We take our parking ticket and soon are schlepping all our picnic supplies in the direction of the Pont.
The place is pretty popular, even at this off time of year. We get water and use the facilities where we see an add for an annual subscription to this place. For nine euros you can get 365 days of car parking which means admission for as many clowns as you can stuff into your little European car. The advert extols all of the fun things you and your family can do here.
We demure, but there are many couples and families here, picnicking and swimming. Some are sitting on the wall (held tightly by dad) looking down at the water (in violation of the listed rules). Some are diving and jumping off the cliffs lining the water (again, contrary to listed prohibitions).
The last time Karen and I were here, with Tricia and Don, the water was so low Don had to walk in the water, towing the girls in the canoe behind him by rope. Now the water is wide and deep and diving seems very doable, if forbidden.
We walk down to the water and then up to the service road that crosses the river next to the Pont proper. The Pont towers next to us and we can see, close up, what an impressive feat the building of this thing really was. We gather it was done with the best slave labor money could buy, but maybe we’re not giving the Romans enough credit.
Wikipedia, another amazing feat, contains a plethora of information on this wonder of the world. We know the bridge was built by the son-in-law of Agustus, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. It seems like a great accomplishment but in terms of titles he was simply a senior magistrate responsible for managing the water supply to Rome and its colonies. So he was like in the public works department.
The bridge was used for either 600 or 900 years, depending on whom you ask. With plants seeds wafting over, shrubs and trees grew on the bridge, taking advantage of the water supply. This eventually gunked up with works until the water supply wasn’t usable. At various times the bridge was rediscovered and various people worked to shore up the 50,000 ton limestone structure.
One of the best known of the people who took an interest in the bridge was a guy named Napoleon III who took a shine to the thing. He arranged for a lot of rehab work to be done on the bridge in the late 1850s. At various times the structure was a toll bridge, green lighted by the pope, and it made transporting good from one side of the valley to the other much easier.
For us the bridge served as eye candy as we enjoy our picnic at a table under some towering plane trees. We’d picked up some sandwiches on the way in and combined that with a ragtag bunch of left overs. On the drive back we enjoyed the allée of plane trees planted in regimented fashion on both sides of the road obviously long ago. They go on for quite a while and become mesmerizing as they whiz by, fwip-fwip-fwip.
Back ‘home’ at the Ferme we install ourselves beside the pool, in the shade, and luxuriate in the low 70 degree weather under the bright blue sky.
For dinner we clean up and head over to the L’Estellan restaurant just outside of Gordes. We’ve not been but it looks good and gets good reviews. It is good and is a draw (apparently) to many a visiting English-speaker. Not being French the crowd is loud and the hard walls, ceiling and floor increases the cacophony. There are French dining with us as well, which we can tell by their habit to interrupt their meal to take their wine outside, mid meal, for a leisurely smoke.
Our drive home is like the night before. Dark and winding on a narrow two lane road. Such driving is easy for youngsters but a bit trickier for an old fart like myself.
Photos
[Note: to view the photos in chronological order, start at the bottom :-/ ]
