Tuesday, 25 May 2010

Had a lovely breakfast with Sev and her mum - fresh croissants with coffee from the machine served in the big bowls they prefer in this area. We left fairly early, Sev driving, and crossed the canal full of boats of all shapes and sizes, then the Rhone and arrived very soon in the pleasant and historic town of Tarascon. Walked through the weekly market set up in the streets, with all manner of products, much from Africa, plus food. We drove back over the river, passing Beaucaire Castle and the bull ring and drove about 20 Ks to the Pont du Gard. This is an amazing Roman aqueduct over the Gard River, part of a 50 K system that delivered water to Nimes - World Heritage listed and very well preserved. It is in a beautiful setting and we walked over it and spent some time there. We then drove a short distance to Nimes, the "French Rome". Apart from being a great place just to walk around, with narrow streets containing wonderful old houses and many shops, it has many important Roman ruins including the ampitheatre, still used today for events, and the Maison Carree (Square House) Roman Temple. They were still cleaning up the streets after a big festival, including bull-fights, over the weekend. We drove back to Sev's house where her mother had prepared a lovely lunch of salad and toasted bread topped with warm sheep's milk cheese - this was followed by creme caramel (much better than the restaurants). We met Sev's sister and her new baby and said our farewells - it was great to see Sev again and we are very grateful for the wonderful hospitality shown to us by Sev and her mum. We headed for the autoroute, got lost and had to drive nearly into Avignon, then eventually found it in heavy traffic and were on the outskirts of Lyon in a couple of hours. It was then a bit of a trial negotiating our way onto the autoroute that heads for Geneva in the peak hour traffic. Arrived back at Brent and Rosemary's at Les Pezieres at around 7.15pm. Rosemary had prepared a fabulous duck dinner for us which we enjoyed on the restuarant deck in the balmy evening. This was followed by cheese and Rosemary's pavlova with passion-fruit and home made ruhbarb and orange - excellent. Wines were Haut-Cluzet Bourdeux and Cotes-du-Rhone - Domaine Clavel.