Sur le pont d'Avignon

Today we stopped in Avignon, home to the apparently famous Avignon Bridge (which of course none of us, except Mum, had heard of). We walked out of our campground ( which was on Ile de la Barthelasse, an island in the middle of the Rhone river with fantastic views across to Avignon) to go across the Avignon Bridge into town but we saw that the bridge only spans across half the river. Why is this so?



We took a different bridge across, found a path through the city walls (which are better preserved and more impressive than York's) and started to walk through town. We found information plaques about the walls, the bridge and why it only goes half way across the river. It turns out that the bridge was built by the Romans but there is a legend that says a shepherd heard voices that told him to build a bridge (Luke reckons the shepherd has spent to long in Amsterdam). The bridge was closed in 1666 because it was deemed unsafe.



We walked around the Palais des Popes and the town a bit longer because there was nothing to do (that is no swimming pool) at camp.


We started to look for dinner and Dad felt like pizza and we told him we are going to Italy in a few days but he replied: "Yeah, but their pizzas are crap," and we couldn't argue with that. We searched around a bit but we couldn't find one place that did a Hawaiian pizza hmmpff.

We finished our evening with a walk along the river bank.


Jake

Location:Avignon, France