{"id":1747,"date":"2013-04-28T20:58:09","date_gmt":"2013-04-28T19:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1747"},"modified":"2026-05-26T04:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T03:42:12","slug":"a-top-wine-and-roman-creations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/04\/28\/a-top-wine-and-roman-creations\/","title":{"rendered":"A Top Wine and Roman Creations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday morning saw us shifting on again, but not very far and in awful conditions. \u00a0It had rained all night and was still coming down fairly heavily.\u00a0 When I opened the door to walk over to the showers, we were sitting in puddles and all the daisies were underwater.\u00a0 A German couple in a large campervan moved before us, or at least tried to.\u00a0 They rocked their van, spun the wheels, but they had sunk fairly deep in the mud. Rodney went over to offer some help, but they weren\u2019t going to budge at that point.\u00a0 They did manage to get out a bit later, with more German muscles involved.\u00a0 When we decided to set off, we were grateful for the fact that we had parked facing the roadway and had our levellers sloping in that direction.\u00a0 With the anti-skid mats placed in front of the levellers, Rodney started the engine and Eileen had no problem driving over to the road; no wheel spinning, no mud spraying and lots of relief.<\/p>\n

We drove north to Orange, but with the clouds still emptying their contents, we opted for a quick drive around and found the best roundabout so far on our travels in France.\u00a0 A genuine Roman \u2018Arc de Triomphe\u2019 is sitting in the middle of a roundabout on the N7 heading north out of Orange.\u00a0 It makes it fun to go and see, but as the traffic was practically non- existent, we pulled over to the side and parked on the edge of the road; you couldn\u2019t do that anywhere in England or Sydney, for sure!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"P1100482 \u00a0 Yep. It’s quite a roundabout…..<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t want to head any further north, so turned around, drove round the Arc de Triomphe again and followed the road through Orange past the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre Antique d\u2019Orange, the huge remains of a Roman theatre.\u00a0 We really fancied a stroll, but the weather was so awful we opted to stay dry and headed back south to Ch\u00e2teauneuf du Pape.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The rain comes down in Ch\u00e2teauneuf du Pape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The steep footpaths of the village were running with water and we were both a bit fed up by now, so we drove on to Camping L\u2019Art d\u2019Vivre, which on arrival, looked like it was still shut for the winter, but the gate was open, so we drove around in circles until we found a spot not too muddy, not too far from the shower block and with an electric point that worked.\u00a0 Someone finally turned up at 6pm, so we paid for one night and cheered ourselves up with a good meal and a movie.\u00a0 If the rain eases tomorrow, we will go back in to Ch\u00e2teauneuf du Pape and check out the wine shops.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
Some of the vines around Ch\u00e2teauneuf du Pape are grown amongst galets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Surrounding the village are the vineyards, some of which look really unusual because they are full of large, round stones known as \u2018galets\u2019.<\/i> \u00a0These soak up the sun during the day and reflect it back at night to the heat-loving Grenaches vines, whose grapes are apparently the main ingredient of red Ch\u00e2teauneuf du Pape wine.<\/p>\n

\"The
The village of Ch\u00e2teauneuf du Pape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The rain eased to showers on Sunday so we wandered the tiny streets of Ch\u00e2teauneuf du Pape taking some photos under the dull skies.\u00a0 Rodney did a tiny<\/span> spot of wine tasting but came away with three bottles of \u2018the best wine in the world\u2019; maybe not the ones we purchased though\u2026\u2026.?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rodney
Rodney shopping in Ch\u00e2teauneuf du Pape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"In
In Ch\u00e2teauneuf du Pape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Next stop on today\u2019s agenda was at the Pont du Gard.\u00a0 It certainly is a magnificent structure and hard to believe that it was built nearly 2,000 years ago and is still standing. \u00a0It is the tallest aqueduct that was built by the Romans, being 50 metres high and what remains is 360 metres long.\u00a0 It was part of a massive 50-kilometre canal built to supply water to Nimes.\u00a0 Over that distance, the fall of the canal is only 25centimetres per kilometre, it\u2019s amazing how they could calculate that back then. We roamed around on both sides of the bridge, wishing that it wasn\u2019t quite so cold and wet; it would be wonderful to see the honey coloured stone glowing in some sunshine, but that definitely wasn\u2019t going to happen today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The Pont du Gard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was warmer and drier inside the museum and art gallery, so we spent a bit of time in there.\u00a0 The exhibition in the art gallery was a bit \u2018left of field\u2019; one exhibit was a movie showing a man at a desk. \u00a0A person would walk in and place an item on the desk.\u00a0 The man would then produce a mallet and smash, or squash the item and push the remains off his desk.\u00a0 We thought that was weird enough, but then he pulled out an ink pad and a block of A4 paper which he stamped the date on and then signed it.\u00a0 He handed the sheet of paper to the visitor, put the stamp, ink pad and the block of paper away and waited for the next visitor.\u00a0 That was it !!!!\u00a0 \u00a0It happened over and over again\u2026\u2026after watching about ten visitors have their \u2018gift\u2019 smashed and receive a bit of paper, we decided it was time to walk away and perhaps get some education in the museum.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The Pont du Gard over the River Gardon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Feeling rather damp and chilled by now, we decided to head in to Avignon and check in to Camping Bagatelle on the Ile de la Barthelasse, over the Rh\u00f4ne River from the Papal Palace.\u00a0 The island is apparently the longest river island in France and we\u2019re hoping that it stays an island, high and dry, while we are sleeping on it.\u00a0 We\u2019ve decided that if this rain is going to continue, it might be easier to be in a city.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Pont
Pont du Gard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday morning saw us shifting on again, but not very far and in awful conditions. \u00a0It had rained all night and was still coming down fairly heavily.\u00a0 When I opened the door to walk over to the showers, we were sitting in puddles and all the daisies were underwater.\u00a0 A German couple in a large […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8412,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions\/8412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}