Monday 11th October.
Orange to Avignon
We awoke to yet another sunlit morning with the church bells of Orange calling us from our bed. There was much to be done, a lot of it in Orange followed by a ride to Avignon. We left our bikes, luggage and paraphernalia in the proprietor's father’s garden and set off on foot to explore the city. Orange is absolutely staggering; we are so pleased to be here. The Romans built a lot of huge buildings at around the time of the birth of Christ and when you look at the size of these buildings we couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer ingenuity.
We took the audio tour of the theatre and forum which is pretty much exclusively about Roman times because after the fall of Roman influence and the arrival of Gauls and Vizigoths etc everything rather fell apart. The Roman theatre has now been restored as best it can be and hosts spectacular Opera, ballet and even rock concerts – it is the perfect venue and is absolutely huge.
Frank Zappa played here in 1975 – we watched a video of the crowd and were amazed by how thin everyone looked, it must have been pre MacDonald’s and emulsified fat substances!!
After such an exhausting cultural experience there was nothing for it but to pull on the lycra and head south for Avignon. Although we are now almost on sight of the Mediterranean the countryside is starting to get quite bumpy – largely because we can no longer hug the Rhone, the French have turned the Rhone hugging roads into motorways! Still, the route we followed firstly toward Chateau Neuf du Pape (a must see from our point of view) was impressive with the amount of vines (and the amount of hills we had to climb to enjoy them) We were heartily relieved to finally free wheel into the town itself and try to look nonchalant as though we had merely stepped out of some smart vehicle. We were quite keen to have a tasting but it is a bit of a giveaway that we are not going to be taking much away with so little luggage space. We had no idea which cave to try first, but fell upon L’Artizan, and independent family producer. Charming, if in a rather dour French way, and he took a bit of warming up but we learned quite a lot about the grape mix etc. Did you know that CNduP is predominantly 60/40 Grenache/ Syrah which changes with the amount of time it is laid down and other factors? What intrigued us most was the terroir. The ground changes from light sandy soil to being made up of almost entirely very large round stones (the size of cricket balls) as you go up the hills. Monsieur in the Cave told us it was not possible to rotavate the ground which saved much work. Anyway he was not keen on sharing any with us so we retreated to the cafe on the other side of the square and bought a couple of glasses instead. His loss as I am sure we could have been serious buyers.Vivi had a pink Cote du Rhone and Alec had a red Ch 9 du P, the pink we think was better than the red but probably because the red could have done with another 10 yrs in the bottle.
By now the wind which was pretty fierce but lovely and warm and was absolutely head on because to get to Villeneuve-les-Avignon we had to head north out of ChduP and cross the Rhone about 4 miles north west. We promised ourselves that once we could see the bridge we would stop for some lunch and it was a relief when we finally could. We found a disused quarry which provided some shelter from the wind and baked in the sunshine watching swallows and martins.
We entered Villeneuve-les-Avignon from the north and were immediately staggered by a huge fort on the outskirts of the old town.
It was very reminiscent of the forts and castles we used to see in Andalucía and not entirely surprising as they were all built by the Crusaders and we aren’t in fact all that far away from Spain. Villeneuve is the old part of Avignon, on the western side of the river but has a heavy Roman influence. The Popes built several palaces here back in the 14c. We were staying in a hotel overlooking the Rhone and the main Papal palace of Avignon and this turned out to be a pretty good place to stay. Needless to say there wasn’t a restaurant open for miles so we had a Vietnamese (a first for us) in the place next door which turned out to be surprisingly delicious!
This is Avignon from our bedroom window....
Tomorrow we have a lot to do and see!!
Tuesday 11th October.
Avignon to Beaucaire
Once we had crossed the bridge into Avignon we were full of enthusiasm about sight-seeing but thought we ought to visit the Gare to find out which trains would take bikes to Bordeaux for the weekend as we have to be there for a ‘grande fete’. On the way there was a colossal traffic jam which didn’t affect us but on arrival we found that it was due to a National Train strike and the workers were happily parading through the streets and shouting and carrying banners.
All sorts of trade unions seem to be involved; This of course meant that the station was in total chaos and they weren’t at all interested in our little problem 2 days hence, other than to say it was probably impossible! So we gave up and went off to see the sights. By this time the strikers were on the march through the centre so the Papal Palace and central square were heaving with people. Being French however this made absolutely no difference to the more important business of eating and drinking as you can see from the laid out tables in the square!
The Papal Palace is absolutely massive and very impressive. There are 25 rooms on view and since we only reckoned we had about an hour to spare thought that would give us time to do 3 of them so decided instead to cycle around it
Whoops Not very good at stitching photos!!
and visit the Pont D’Avignon. Now this was an important one for me as back in about 1961 when I was 10 our Woodcote House French master (name forgotten) brought to class one day a record of ‘Sous le Pont, d’Avignon’ I have never forgotten it and so far have never seen it – so here I am exactly 50 years on, visiting this place which for all this time has merely been a dream. Just the Table Mountain in South Africa and the Sugar Loaf in Sao Paulo and a few more besides to go and not much time left either!
The bridge only goes half way across the river, the other half was lost and the bridge abandoned after a flood back in the 1700’s.
Avignon is a University town and today they were in evidence in droves as their lecturers were all on strike. Sitting around in parks and on street corners they all looked amazingly bored. I suppose some of the more radical amongst them were marching with the strikers but from the look of it, not many.
We left the walled part to negotiate our route south towards Arles and Beaucaire where we are staying. We stopped off at a little bar to change into ‘bikey clothes’ and the locals were very friendly joking with me “we izz zo zorri abaaat de roogbi” if you can call that being friendly. I just said we woz robbed and left it at that. They were so surprised to get any tourists as the cafe was a couple of miles outside the walls so it was some time before we got away. Lots of Franglais was spoken.
We then spent the most ridiculous amount of time trying to negotiate the new autoroutes around the TGV station, which are not on the map, and had to be passed to get over the Durance River, and southwards to the Camargue. About 2 hours after leaving Avignon we were triumphant having been turned back a few times. A cyclist had been killed last week so they had changed the ‘preferred routes’. After that it was downhill all the way to Tarascon and Beaucaire which are the loveliest towns.
This area has a very Southern European feel, the signposts have 2 translations, 1 French, 1 Provencal, we came across our first bullring and then very narrow (rather grubby) streets which have a real feel of Tunisia or Morocco and the inhabitants look a bit like that too.
Tarascon also has an amazing castle right on the riverside and adjacent to a similar sized one on the other bank which presumably guarded the inhabitants of Beaucaire.
Orange to Avignon
We awoke to yet another sunlit morning with the church bells of Orange calling us from our bed. There was much to be done, a lot of it in Orange followed by a ride to Avignon. We left our bikes, luggage and paraphernalia in the proprietor's father’s garden and set off on foot to explore the city. Orange is absolutely staggering; we are so pleased to be here. The Romans built a lot of huge buildings at around the time of the birth of Christ and when you look at the size of these buildings we couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer ingenuity.
We took the audio tour of the theatre and forum which is pretty much exclusively about Roman times because after the fall of Roman influence and the arrival of Gauls and Vizigoths etc everything rather fell apart. The Roman theatre has now been restored as best it can be and hosts spectacular Opera, ballet and even rock concerts – it is the perfect venue and is absolutely huge.
Frank Zappa played here in 1975 – we watched a video of the crowd and were amazed by how thin everyone looked, it must have been pre MacDonald’s and emulsified fat substances!!
After such an exhausting cultural experience there was nothing for it but to pull on the lycra and head south for Avignon. Although we are now almost on sight of the Mediterranean the countryside is starting to get quite bumpy – largely because we can no longer hug the Rhone, the French have turned the Rhone hugging roads into motorways! Still, the route we followed firstly toward Chateau Neuf du Pape (a must see from our point of view) was impressive with the amount of vines (and the amount of hills we had to climb to enjoy them) We were heartily relieved to finally free wheel into the town itself and try to look nonchalant as though we had merely stepped out of some smart vehicle. We were quite keen to have a tasting but it is a bit of a giveaway that we are not going to be taking much away with so little luggage space. We had no idea which cave to try first, but fell upon L’Artizan, and independent family producer. Charming, if in a rather dour French way, and he took a bit of warming up but we learned quite a lot about the grape mix etc. Did you know that CNduP is predominantly 60/40 Grenache/ Syrah which changes with the amount of time it is laid down and other factors? What intrigued us most was the terroir. The ground changes from light sandy soil to being made up of almost entirely very large round stones (the size of cricket balls) as you go up the hills. Monsieur in the Cave told us it was not possible to rotavate the ground which saved much work. Anyway he was not keen on sharing any with us so we retreated to the cafe on the other side of the square and bought a couple of glasses instead. His loss as I am sure we could have been serious buyers.Vivi had a pink Cote du Rhone and Alec had a red Ch 9 du P, the pink we think was better than the red but probably because the red could have done with another 10 yrs in the bottle.
By now the wind which was pretty fierce but lovely and warm and was absolutely head on because to get to Villeneuve-les-Avignon we had to head north out of ChduP and cross the Rhone about 4 miles north west. We promised ourselves that once we could see the bridge we would stop for some lunch and it was a relief when we finally could. We found a disused quarry which provided some shelter from the wind and baked in the sunshine watching swallows and martins.
We entered Villeneuve-les-Avignon from the north and were immediately staggered by a huge fort on the outskirts of the old town.
It was very reminiscent of the forts and castles we used to see in Andalucía and not entirely surprising as they were all built by the Crusaders and we aren’t in fact all that far away from Spain. Villeneuve is the old part of Avignon, on the western side of the river but has a heavy Roman influence. The Popes built several palaces here back in the 14c. We were staying in a hotel overlooking the Rhone and the main Papal palace of Avignon and this turned out to be a pretty good place to stay. Needless to say there wasn’t a restaurant open for miles so we had a Vietnamese (a first for us) in the place next door which turned out to be surprisingly delicious!
This is Avignon from our bedroom window....
Tomorrow we have a lot to do and see!!
Tuesday 11th October.
Avignon to Beaucaire
Once we had crossed the bridge into Avignon we were full of enthusiasm about sight-seeing but thought we ought to visit the Gare to find out which trains would take bikes to Bordeaux for the weekend as we have to be there for a ‘grande fete’. On the way there was a colossal traffic jam which didn’t affect us but on arrival we found that it was due to a National Train strike and the workers were happily parading through the streets and shouting and carrying banners.
All sorts of trade unions seem to be involved; This of course meant that the station was in total chaos and they weren’t at all interested in our little problem 2 days hence, other than to say it was probably impossible! So we gave up and went off to see the sights. By this time the strikers were on the march through the centre so the Papal Palace and central square were heaving with people. Being French however this made absolutely no difference to the more important business of eating and drinking as you can see from the laid out tables in the square!
The Papal Palace is absolutely massive and very impressive. There are 25 rooms on view and since we only reckoned we had about an hour to spare thought that would give us time to do 3 of them so decided instead to cycle around it
Whoops Not very good at stitching photos!!
and visit the Pont D’Avignon. Now this was an important one for me as back in about 1961 when I was 10 our Woodcote House French master (name forgotten) brought to class one day a record of ‘Sous le Pont, d’Avignon’ I have never forgotten it and so far have never seen it – so here I am exactly 50 years on, visiting this place which for all this time has merely been a dream. Just the Table Mountain in South Africa and the Sugar Loaf in Sao Paulo and a few more besides to go and not much time left either!
The bridge only goes half way across the river, the other half was lost and the bridge abandoned after a flood back in the 1700’s.
Avignon is a University town and today they were in evidence in droves as their lecturers were all on strike. Sitting around in parks and on street corners they all looked amazingly bored. I suppose some of the more radical amongst them were marching with the strikers but from the look of it, not many.
We left the walled part to negotiate our route south towards Arles and Beaucaire where we are staying. We stopped off at a little bar to change into ‘bikey clothes’ and the locals were very friendly joking with me “we izz zo zorri abaaat de roogbi” if you can call that being friendly. I just said we woz robbed and left it at that. They were so surprised to get any tourists as the cafe was a couple of miles outside the walls so it was some time before we got away. Lots of Franglais was spoken.
We then spent the most ridiculous amount of time trying to negotiate the new autoroutes around the TGV station, which are not on the map, and had to be passed to get over the Durance River, and southwards to the Camargue. About 2 hours after leaving Avignon we were triumphant having been turned back a few times. A cyclist had been killed last week so they had changed the ‘preferred routes’. After that it was downhill all the way to Tarascon and Beaucaire which are the loveliest towns.
This area has a very Southern European feel, the signposts have 2 translations, 1 French, 1 Provencal, we came across our first bullring and then very narrow (rather grubby) streets which have a real feel of Tunisia or Morocco and the inhabitants look a bit like that too.
Tarascon also has an amazing castle right on the riverside and adjacent to a similar sized one on the other bank which presumably guarded the inhabitants of Beaucaire.
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