“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” Lou Holtz

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." Confucius

Wednesday 19 July 2017

Avignon, Pont du Gard and Albi

Sur le pont d'Avignon etc.  
Since we were almost there, it was a no brainer that we had to visit Avignon but I'd have to say I was disappointed.  I'm not sure if it was the after the party effect of Bastille Day..the French national day, but the place was a mess.  Apart from rather a lot of people sleeping on the streets at 10am,  there were swathes of posters  hanging everywhere which sadly looked downright messy and spoilt the ambience of the old city.
We were on our transfer day and so opted not to spend time actually walking onto the bridge and the ramparts.  

 This was just an example of the posters everywhere.  I opted not to take too many pix

I loved this though...bollards guarding the pedestrian precinct which dropped down into the pavement when you swiped your card...and is that a "biscuiterie" I've inadvertently caught  on the side of the pix??




So then it was off to the Pont du Gard, an ancient Roman aqueduct from ??46-60AD.  Well worth a trip but we were sad and somewhat amazed to discover that as individual visitors our only chance of walking the top part of the bridge was at 3pm or 4pm.

We then set off to Albi, deciding to go the motorway route.  After getting rather tired half way there I stopped at a services to load up on caffeine.  On returning to the route we discovered a very long and very slow tail back. A quick look at the map and we were off onto the scenic route.  We later discovered the delay was at least 90 minutes!

We have been having alot of trouble with our car's GPS unit as it has been sending us off on ridiculous and totally unwarranted short cuts and directing us to drive down dead end roads, so we had a bit of trouble finding our gite in Mauriac, a tiny hamlet 20km outside of Albi.

Eventually we found it and WOW!

 The entrance  and where we keep our bikes
 stone and wood abound

modernised ++ but with the old beams  still in situ...


our drive into Albi took us past this fantastic example of re-purposing!
This well is on the TT course...
I hope I'm not going to be stopping by it again!

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