{"id":1760,"date":"2013-04-30T19:46:56","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T18:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1760"},"modified":"2026-05-25T07:00:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T06:00:54","slug":"no-dancing-sur-la-pont-d-avignon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/04\/30\/no-dancing-sur-la-pont-d-avignon\/","title":{"rendered":"No Dancing Sur La Pont d\u2019 Avignon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The campsite at Avignon had a loud speaker warning system for in case of flooding.\u00a0 On arrival, the Rh\u00f4ne River had looked very high and, worryingly, the rain continued to fall all evening and all night.\u00a0 I half expected to be issued with life-jackets at check in!\u00a0\u00a0 My nightmares on Sunday night included being thrown out of a kayak and also of floating down the Rh\u00f4ne in Eileen, bobbing along past the Popes Palace and then turning over in slow motion.\u00a0\u00a0 Not a good night\u2019s sleep!\u00a0 We\u2019re praying desperately for dry weather, like criminals must pray for the perfect bank robbery\u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n

Around 11am the rain eased, so we donned our raincoats, walked over the Pont Edouard Daladier (bridge) and into the walled city.\u00a0 We found the Office de Tourisme and some public toilets, both of which are always very handy.\u00a0 We nosed in a few shops and as the heavy rain returned, we chose a restaurant for steak and chips; it seemed like the right sort of meal for a bad-weather day.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\"Avignon
Avignon Clock tower at the Hotel de Ville<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The old part of the city is rather lovely with its maze of narrow streets; we think we went around in circles but we finally popped out under a wall of the huge Palais des Papes and out in to the expansive Place du Palais.\u00a0 We strolled through the Rocher des Doms, a garden that slopes up to the top of a bluff where there are wonderful views.\u00a0 From there you can see across the Rh\u00f4ne River to Villeneuve les Avignon, over to the Dentelles de Montmirail and we could even see the top of Mont Ventoux through the murky clouds. Below us was the Pont d\u2019 Avignon (Pont St B\u00e9nez\u00e9t), or at least the remaining four of the original twenty-two arches of the bridge. \u00a0We mumbled the song, but opted not to \u201cl\u2019on y danse tout en rond\u201d on it\u2026..perhaps if it had been a sunny day\u2026..?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Pont
Pont d’ Avignon and our campsite amongst the trees<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The interior of the Palais des Papes seemed a more weather appropriate option.\u00a0 Nine Popes chose to live here during the 14th<\/sup> century, rather than in the Vatican, but since then I think they could have looked after their old home a bit better.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fabulous, crumbling place and retains a few bits of old frescoes and floor tiles, but most of it has been ransacked or fallen in to disrepair over the centuries, however we did spend a couple of hours getting lost in its empty rooms, passages and courtyards and reading all the information sheets.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The Palais des Papes and Cathedral Notre Dames des Doms<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We popped in to the Cath\u00e9drale Notre Dame des Doms, which was very grand but very gloomy and dark inside, in complete contrast to the shining gold figure of the Virgin Mary on the spire.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The Palais des Papes Cathedral and Notre Dames des Doms<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the way back to Eileen, we found our way down to the Pont d\u2019Avignon.\u00a0 It seems quite sad to think that it was repaired and re-built so many times and then finally abandoned in the 17th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 A bridge should definitely go somewhere\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Pont
Pont d’ Avignon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tuesday morning was spent in a queue in the laundrette, waiting for use of the lone tumble dryer.\u00a0 But I spent the time productively reading the Sunday Times magazine from April 7th<\/sup>.\u00a0 Rodney caught up on what was happening to the real Robinson Crusoe in his book \u2018Selkirk\u2019s Island\u2019; he keeps muttering that he\u2019s glad he wasn\u2019t a sailor back then.<\/p>\n

At 3pm the skies cleared and we strolled down the riverbank to catch the ferry over to the city.\u00a0 Unfortunately the jetty was completely under water and so no ferries were able to run.\u00a0 So we turned around, walked back past the campsite and over the bridge again to see if Avignon looked different without the rain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The Pont d’Avignon and Palais<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We found roads we hadn\u2019t been down before and also popped in to the Orange shop to buy some gigabytes for wi-fi.\u00a0 So far, we had managed without it, as most campsites had their own available to campers, but we thought it would probably come in handy at some point.\u00a0 We paid \u20ac20 for 2 Gb, thanked the man and wandered on through the old pedestrian-only area of the city.\u00a0 In need of a seat, we found a caf\u00e9 for a cup of hot chocolate and proceeded to test the Orange dongle in our Microsoft Surface.\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t work; we searched about in various areas, but just couldn\u2019t get it to \u2018play\u2019.\u00a0 So we found our way back to the Orange shop, where another nice man had a look about and finally came up with an answer.\u00a0 \u201cA dongle for wi-fi will not work with a Microsoft Surface\u201d; dang!\u00a0 He suggested we buy a mi-fi as that would work.\u00a0 \u201cAh ha\u201d we said, \u201cwe have one of those back at the campsite\u201d.<\/p>\n

Not wanting to eat too early in the evening, we sat in one of the squares to people watch for a while.\u00a0 I have to say they have very posh drunks in Avignon.\u00a0 One very grubby chap with long grey dreadlocks was swigging from a champagne bottle, obviously not a ‘cheap drunk’.\u00a0 At 7pm we ducked in to a very empty little Vietnamese restaurant, as we were both craving some Asian food by now.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t particularly Vietnamese food and wasn\u2019t anything like as good as the meals we had last year in Vietnam, or even the ones in Sydney, but it was tasty enough and a nice change of flavours.\u00a0 Back at the campsite, we tested out the sim card from the dongle in our mi-fi and did a little dance; it worked !\u00a0 Yippee !\u00a0 Rodney checked the news and we had an early night zzzzzzzzz<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"One
One of many interestingly named roads in Avignon…. Hope we didn’t catch any….!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The campsite at Avignon had a loud speaker warning system for in case of flooding.\u00a0 On arrival, the Rh\u00f4ne River had looked very high and, worryingly, the rain continued to fall all evening and all night.\u00a0 I half expected to be issued with life-jackets at check in!\u00a0\u00a0 My nightmares on Sunday night included being thrown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1764,"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-1760","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\/1760","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=1760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8411,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions\/8411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}