Provence

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Continuing our weekend excursions, this past weekend we traveled south, spending about 6 hours in the car to reach the Provence region of France.

As usual, I had difficulty getting out of work early, so we didn’t leave Sully until near 6 pm on Friday. The plan was to drive several hours and then look for a place to camp. Unfortunately we didn’t start looking for a camp site soon enough. Using our camping map we located addresses for sites and used the GPS to navigate to them, but a misspelled address and a few wrong turns brought us to the site after the gates closed at 10 pm. We drove around for an hour and a half looking for a site that wasn’t gated, but not finding any we pulled into the parking lot of a school and bunkered down for a night in the car. It was chilly outside, got into the low 40’s overnight, but we cocooned in our sleeping bags with the front seats reclined and slept relatively well. I was expecting a policeman to knock on our window at some point during the night, but fortunately we were left alone.

The next morning we started driving early to avoid any legal violations. Our first stop was the town of Avignon, famous as the home of the Catholic Church when a French pope decided to relocate. We found a camp site directly across the Rhone within walking distance from the town. We biked across the bridge and then walked around the town. Avignon still has the protective walls surrounding it, giving it a decidedly medieval look. The major attractions were the Palais de Papes (Palace of the Popes), an elevated park with scenic views of the river and city, and stone arch bridge that had been the only bridge across the Rhone until it was partially destroyed by a flood in the Middle Ages and then there was no bridge for hundreds of years. We meandered around town for a few hours, having lunch at a nice, walk-up café.

We then drove a few minutes to the remains of a castle at Le Baux. This was located in the hills, perched above sheer cliffs. At one time the residents of Le Baux controlled the area from this strategic perch. The remains of the fortress were very impressive. Most of it had been destroyed after a battle, but we could climb to the top of a tower, see the honeycombed wall of the huge dovecote where pigeons were raised for food and communication, a large cistern, and the outlines of the huge halls and rooms that housed the residents. There were also full size replicas of a trebuchet and several smaller catapult type weapons.

The infamous “Mistral wind” was blowing strong throughout the day. We literally had to lean into the wind while on Le Baux for balance. The tourist shops surrounding the castle all seemed to contain items with images of cicadas. It was too cold and windy for cicadas while we were there, but I would assume during the summer the sound of their rubbing wings prevails.

Leaving here we traveled to Pont du Guard, a huge Roman aqueduct crossing a nearby river. The Roman arches are the largest anywhere resulting in the second highest Roman structure still standing (the top of the aqueduct is only a few feet shorter than the Coliseum in Rome).

That was enough for one day, so we bought dinner at Auchan (local Walmart style store), and bunkered down for a cold night. Not having properly staked the tent before we left, the mistral wind had blown it several feet, but one of our neighbors had dragged it back and used our bike rack to hold it in place.

The next day we drove to Arles, another Roman town with its own arena and theater. The Roman arena is where bull fights are held during the summer. Interesting that this structure has been in use for nearly 2,000 years. The church in Arles had an intriguing façade, with sculpture of the Christ and the apostles, along with the saved and the damned walking in hellfire. Christ was surrounded by Luke (represented as an ox), Mark (winged lion), Matthew (winged man), and John (eagle).

The weather was chilly, so we didn’t stay too long before driving to a scenic loop in the mountains. Lunch was at one of the small towns in the hills, surrounded by vast fields of grapevines. There were numerous bikers on the road as we circled higher and the views of the valley and mountains were fabulous. After that we were on the road back home.