Pont du Gard April 3

Today I left Cotignac.  There are two sites that I decided I had to see, the Pont du Gard and Les Gorges de l'Ardeche, before heading north.  The day started a bit off considering the wonderfully summery weather we'd been having.  Today it was cloudy and threatening.  Nonetheless, I needed to head back to Lyon to return the rental car and had my "must-sees" to do.

I took the autoroute from Brignoles to Avignon, but none of the signs directed me to either Pont du Gard or any of the possible routes or towns in that direction.  This led me to rambling through Avignon, including a drive past the former home of the popes, across the Rhone and finally to some signage with some promise.

The Romans built the Pont du Gard aquaduct to move water from the spring near Uzes to a series of canals and on to Nimes.  It's a perfectly perserved section and well worth the viewing.

Unbeknownst to me, the site was utterly free due to the Easter holiday weekend.  It was not overrun with tourists, but was doing a decent business for a holiday weekend.  As an additional special attraction there was a sort of farmer's market within the Pont du Gard site which as selling meat, cheese, jam, soap, and breads.  There were also some farm animals, presumably for the children to observe and pet.

 Do you see the people on the bridge, those litttle bumps?  That is helpful in understanding the scale of this.

There were a few rain drops daring to fall, but it held off.  I headed north from Pont du Gard to Les Gorges de l'Ardeche.  The tourist stop at the south end is Pont St-Esprit.  It was a bit of a drive along small roads to get there and the weather was holding, so I kept going.  Pont St-Espirit had little to recommend it other than its location and several chain hotels.  About 6:00 PM I could tell that the weather was getting impatient to start pouring and services were getting slim.  I decided to pull over at what happened to be the last hotel in St Martin d'Ardeche to avoid driving along the edge of cliffs in the rain and dark and have half a chance of seeing the sites that I was determined not to miss.

The auberge (inn/hotel/restaurant) turned out to be a perfect spot to stop for the night.  No internet, no TV, and a room facing the cliffs, the river, and a vineyard in between.  There was a little village at the top of one of the cliffs complete with a bell tower, just too lovely for words.  The woman at the desk was friendly and helpful although our conversation had to depend on my French.  She asked if I'd be staying for dinner which sounded good to me.  I let her know that I was a vegetarian so there would be no misunderstanding about why I wasn't having the house special.  We decided that I would have a salad with egg and cheese (and bread, of course).  She told me that dinner would be at 7:30 PM so I went back to my room for a nap; the weather thenproceeded to "let the bottom out" complete with thunder and lightning.

I knew to show up a bit after the 7:30 PM time, but I was still the first of the guests to arrive.  After a bit of discussion, she expressed her concern that I was not having anything warm to eat and suggested a ratatouille with pasta.  She didn't have to bend my arm on that one.  Everything was great including more "vin rose" than I should have tried to drink on my own.  I stopped before I would regret it.  With a full stomach, I went back to my room and slept like a stone.