Today we left the Airbnb in Nice. On arising, we checked Beth’s baggage air-tag and find that the bag is no longer in Newark. In addition, we’ve got a message from Swiss Airlines (who is responsible for our missing bag) saying that our bags will show up at the Nice airport around 10 AM. It would be great to finally wear something different!
Our
Airbnb hosts had told us that it was okay to park where we parked on Sunday,
but that we would need to move the car early on Monday or it would get
ticketed. So I walked over to the car and drove it past the harbor, into Nice
(now without barricades!) and parked in the bakery parking lot. To make sure
that we qualified as customers, we ate breakfast there. I had something that
translates as a "raisin snail". This is a pastry that is wrapped around and
around in circles with raisins and spices in between sort of like a snail
shell. I also ordered orange juice which meant that I got to watch their
automatic orange squeezing machine. You throw a bunch of oranges in at the top, then the oranges move down into the machine and are squeezed
one at a time by a series of balls. The juice comes out at the bottom. We've spent enough time that we need to give the keys back to the owners and head
to the airport.
The
trip to the airport only takes about 20 minutes! We park close to the correct
terminal and head inside. I’d been wondering how we could get into baggage
claim without going through security or if we would have to go through security
without a boarding pass. It turned out that there was a keypad and speaker at
the exit to baggage claim that indicates which extension you should push to
reclaim a bag. Beth pushes the button and inputs the claim number, and a woman
tells us to enter when the door opens. We enter a short hallway with security
doors on each end. Presumably, someone is looking at us on closed circuit TV to
see if we are safe. Then a woman comes
and opens the door at the other end of the hallway. She tells us to go look for
our bags and then come back to her. It only takes minutes to find our long-lost
bags:
Success! I'm really looking forward to wearing some clean clothes! We head back to the car and off we go. We had been hoping to visit with my
former bosses Elisabeth and Heinz at their seaside home in Saint Aygulf about
75km southwest of Nice. Even after everything became fouled up, we were hoping
that we would be able to visit with them on our way to Arles, but going to
visit them now would mean that we would not be able to visit the ancient Pont
du Gard UNESCO World Heritage site in Avignon. So on to Avignon we go. It is
about a 2.5 hour drive, but the roadside geology makes it a very interesting trip. Here are some pictures:
This
is part of the Massif Central – a blob of rock that is about 3 Billion
years old! The bottom picture is of Mont Ventoux, a 1910-meter
(6270-foot) piece of limestone that sticks straight out of the surrounding flat
ground. Ventoux means windy in French, which is fitting because the wind blows
at 70 kph (56 MPH) for 240 days a year! Tour de France enthusiasts will know
that this is a frequent climb during the Tour and that the top looks a lot like
a moonscape with almost no vegetation.
Along
the way, we pass under a couple of overpasses designed for animals. You’d think
that these would be for apex predators like big cats or bears, but you’d be
wrong. There are pictures of the animals that the overpasses are for, and the
largest one is …the hedgehog!
On
our way to the Pont du Gard, we pass the Pont D’Avignon. As we go by, the
lyrics of a song I learned in elementary school are running through my head: "Sur le Pont d’Avignon, l’on y danse, l’on y danse, sur le pont d’Avignon, l’on
y danse tous en rond" (On the bridge of Avignon, they dance, they dance, on the
bridge of Avignon, they all dance in a circle).
One of the highlights of any of our travels is a visit to a UNESCO World Heritage site. This is the reason for our interest in visiting the Pont du Gard. The Pont du Gard was a Roman aqueduct/bridge over the river Gardon built in the 1st century AD to bring water to the city of Nemausus (now known as Nimes). In part, it is known for the huge arches in the bottom layer of the bridge. Here is a picture:
Nemausus was like a rest stop on a Roman highway connecting Rome with Spain, so it was important for the guest houses and public baths to have plenty of water for the locals and for important persons traveling to and from Rome. The aqueduct remained in use perhaps until the 6th century and much longer as a toll bridge. The bridge suffered serious damage in the 17th century when some of the huge limestone blocks were raided to build other buildings in the area. But over time, the bridge became a tourist attraction and serious efforts to renovate it were made in the 18th through 20th centuries. There are parks on both sides of the river where people can rent rafts, kayaks or just hang out. Here is a view from the bridge:
Most
interesting for me were the tools that helped the Roman’s build the bridge and
their amazing water management. They had water-heated floors, temperature
mixing valves and some very clever ways of filtering sediment out of the water
supply so the pipes didn’t clog up. Of course, their water pipes were all made
out of lead which caused major health problems for anyone who lived long
enough, but the fact that they had such sophisticated water systems two
thousand years ago was incredible.
On
the ride back to our Airbnb in the village of Arles, we get a much better view
of the Pont D’Avignon – there is only half a bridge there! I don’t know when
the other half fell into the river, but I did learn that the dance that the
song was based on was held under and not on the bridge. Google maps tells us we
are close to our Airbnb, so we stop to get some breakfast and dinner stuff. In
the process, we learn that even though they are called "supermarches", they are
not the same as American supermarkets. We pull into a parking lot that has a bakery on one side, a
veggie/fruit market in the middle and a meat/cheese shop on the other side –
three different shops with three different checkout counters in order to get
what we need.
We had a difficult time finding the Airbnb because it was located on the main route into downtown Arles at the end of a narrow alleyway and had a locked gate with a keypad. We went past that alleyway two or three times with U-turns each time before we got to the right place. Once inside the gate, our host, who lives in the other part of the house, comes to greet us. She speaks almost no English but is a wizard with an app similar to Google Translate. She speaks into her phone in French and the translation comes out in English. We have a nice conversation. She explains where everything is and what we need to know. We sit down and enjoy a light dinner of ham, bread and cheese and fresh vegetables. We planned to finally drink the wine we got from our hosts in Nice, but when we try it, it is clear that it has been cooked in the hot car.
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