Today was a busy day. We opted not to run even if we had planned it. We started off with a visit to the castle in the Cité de Carcassonne. We had missed it yesterday so we decided to do it before leaving. It sure was worth going through!
In this self guided tour, you went into the castle and ramparts. I wish there would've have been better explanations of things, and that perhaps a room or two would've have been "decorated" like it would've been in those days. It would have also been nice to see the dungeon...oh well - it was still fascinating.
After this activity, we hopped in the car and off we went to Minerve - another medieval village -this one much smaller. Boy oh boy! This was worth the detour! Very different from Carcassonne -it's in a "hole" - in the river bed - where 50 million years ago, this area would've been a sea. The rocks are all eaten by the water - it's very neat to see. If we would've been patient, we probably could've found some fossils in the rock walls. We made our way down to the bottom -the river bed. After a short walk, we arrived to what they called "natural bridge". We would call it a natural tunnel... it was a cavernous space carved out by water over millions of years. It went through and through the mountain. There was 2 of them. Very cool.We had ice cream (of course) and left to drive to Avignon to see the famous bridge and "palais des papes".
After a 2 hour drive or so, we arrived. We checked in our hotel -which has a parking -yahoo! What a relief! Parking here in France seems to be prime space!
We walked over to the town center where we took the tour of the "Palais des papes". WOW!! I'd
have to say this is one of the best tours of anything I've ever had a tour of! Spectacular! You get an iPad that explains things, then you have interactive aspects as well -sort of like virtual reality -you would move the iPad around and see how it would've probably looked like when it was built.
As beautiful as this place is, it's sort of disgusts me that in those days, (and today), people starve everywhere and we build these ridiculous buildings in the name of God... really? Nuts! 9 popes have lived here - the first one built this ridiculously large palace. The second pope didn't think it was large enough so he had no parts added on, and the 3 and the fourth pope... you get the picture... Craziness! They did the renovations beautifully. I wonder how much that cost...
After this fabulous tour, Rémi was starving so we had dinner. Finally something I enjoyed! I had chicken with potatoes and vegetables. Nothing fancy - just delicious!
We came here to see the "pont d'Avigon". What a disappointment! They charge people to walk on
the bridge! I'm not paying to walk on a bridge. I don't care how famous it is! Oh well, we saw it from the ground and that's good enough. I wasn't anything special really...a bridge they never completed... The one we saw in Minerve earlier today was much more impressive...
That's concludes today. What will tomorrow bring?
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