Strangely, we’re writing this blog from a McDonalds just outside the city walls of the medieval city of Carcassonne. If there hasn’t been a bigger clash between new and old then we give up. We deserve to be cut a bit of slack as we have been to five UNESCO World Heritage sites since our last blog…and to be honest, we’re just using the free wifi.
We finished our time in Avignon by seeing some mediocre but amusing French theatre, making friends with some of the wonderful street performers and a visit to the Palais des Papes. The latter was very impressive, but even though popes hung out there for a century back in the day (1300s) and it had great views of Avignon, it doesn’t make our Top 5 UNESCO sites; more on that at a later date.
Half an hour up the road was the Roman theatre of Orange. Again, it was very impressive and we learnt a lot about Roman/Greco acting and the socio/political hierarchy of the time, but the main thing that Beth took away from it all was that she would like to have oranges on her coat of arms one day. And a dragon. Oh, and Darius liked the acoustics or something. Beth didn’t quite catch what he was saying.
After a long week in a hot and stuffy city, we headed out into the countryside after seeing another UNESCO World Heritage site close by. A quick Google search told us the Pont du Gard was a Roman aquaduct, but not much more than that. We were expecting to be able to pass it from the road and “ooh” and “ah” from the van, but when we turned up it was much more swish. A large car park and visitor’s centre greeted us, and we spotted lots of people leaving with picnic blankets, wine coolers (we are in France) and swimming gear. What we found under the remarkable aquaduct was a beautiful blue river with a pebbly beach alongside it plus cliffs and rocks to jump into the water from. Darius managed to pull a muscle in his neck attempting to somersault into the water from the rocks, while 10 year olds managed it perfectly. It was a fantastic find and made us realise that we’d like to head to the hills…
A board in the information centre told us about the other ‘Grand Sites de France’ – basically, what we should check out. One was only a slight detour from the route we had planned to get to Spain, so on Sunday we rocked up to St Jean de Fos and camped in an ‘aire de camping car’ at the site of the Devil’s Bridge. We spent two days there exploring the Herault gorge by canoe, foot and breaststroke. A trip to the caves of Clamouse was cool, but Beth got freaked out by the little white fish that had evolved to live in the cave, with no eyes. Oh, and if you were wondering, yes this was another UNESCO site. Maybe this McDonalds is a UNESCO site… the word is starting to lose all meaning. Another fantastic find, where Darius spent the evenings playing guitar and boules with the other van owners and a friendly Italian man called Renaldo.
This afternoon (Tuesday) we found our way to Carcassonne (we won’t mention the U word if you don’t) and Beth had to dissuade Darius from buying a wooden sword and shield, only because the only sizes available were for five year olds. We ate ice cream in the sun and rambled along the ramparts before finding this haute cuisine restaurant for our evening meal, or three if you’re Darius – he doesn’t feel good about it.
Next stop is Spain via Andorra, because it’s a new country so why not. Au revoir France, for the moment, and buenos dias Spain!
Top 5 UNESCO site on our whole trip:
5. Brú na Bóinne – Megalithic Tombs in Ireland
4. Orange – Roman theatre
3. Devil’s Bridge – Medieval bridge
2. Giant’s Causeway – Northern Irish japes
1. Skellig Michael – puffins, Star Wars and monks beat everything
Travel Dragons 