Today we leave Avignon and go to Clermont Ferrand via two viaducts built 2000 years apart but with the same engineering principles and accuracy.
Farewell Avignon, did I mention I was on speaking terms with a US Senator? I have no idea if he really was one or his name. When checking in he mentioned to the receptionist that he was a senator and he was told he could get a free room upgrade and complimentary breakfast, to her great credit she gave him a junior suite but refused the breakfasts, I mean talk about heads in trough, breakfast was only €34 for two, why would you bother asking! We both then got instructions on the route to the car park, I saw him later with his wife and said I assumed he got back ok, he said he did but couldn't find his way out of the carpark, just like US government policy on most things really. BTW the car park had a metre wide green strip on the floor marked pedestrians, missed the bleeding obvious, just like US policy on most things......
Just a few kilometres from Avignon stands the majestic Pont du Gard, a three tier Roman structure that was part of a 50 km long viaduct that carried water to the city of Nimes. It is the highest Roman viaduct in existence with one in Spain, it is 48.8 metres high and the water drop from one side of the gorge to the other is 2.5cm, and this was completed in the first century with tools available then, compasses, picks, plumb lines and other fairly crude tools. Shows how good the Roman engineers were, the city of Nimes had a pressured water system in around 60 AD. We were staggered at the sheer size and beauty of it, photographs cannot do it justice you'll have to come and see it. They have recently built a museum onsite and it is among the best we have seen, life size machines of the time and descriptions of building methods and lots of audio visuals, big tick..........
We motored on and having passed through some rain we arrived at the Millau Viaduct, in fact I was going to video the drive across but we came across it quickly and there is no stopping in the direction we were going so no vid....... We did stop at the other end and walked for some distance to get some pictures.
It is 2.5 km long and at it's height is 270 metres above the ground and the tallest column is 343 metres. If you get a chance there is doco on Youtube on the construction, it is truly a modern engineering feat. The two ends of the viaduct were pushed out from both sides and when they met the two parts were only minutely out, well done the French. Again photographs do not do it justice. Come and see it...!
We got to Clermont and as it was just a bed stop on the way to Caen we went down to the restaurant next door, La Boucherie, guess what they have on the menu ......!
As Penny is now multi lingual, the waiter asked her if she spoke English....... she said no!
