Today we started with breakfast in the Ibis hotel. Surprising hearty. Rhonda saw a guy making his lunch out of a baguette and the cold cuts and cheese from the breakfast buffet.
We drove into Orange to see the Roman Theater. Lots of photos, n.b. It was cool and the audio guide was very useful. The stage was being set up for some kind of concert and the sound check, and a pianist getting the grand piano ready, showed that the acoustics of the theater were as great as has been said. I notice the wood floor of the stage was covered with some kind of flooring, looked to me like rolled out black rubber mats, presumably to prevent noise when performers walked on the stage. A woman was busy cleaning each chair, which looked set up for an orchestra. On each side of the stage there was a tan wall of plywood concealing black-roofed shade tents -- I guess this would serve as the "green room" for the night's performers.
From the top of the amphitheater you could see Mont Ventoux in the far distance.
Then we went across the street to the Museum depite our expectations of just seeing Roman stones. Indeed they were there but also, fragments of pretty good mosaic -- we learned that Orange had some of the best mosaic makers in Roman times. More amazing were the stone carved land ownership maps. The Romans had a system much like ours that created a grid. Rhonda noted that the top of the stone map wasn't north! but I bet she can't tell me which direction up was. (east)
The museum also had a couple rooms dedicated to the cotton print fabric trade (Denim = de Nimes) which was exemplified by a Swiss owned factory (Wellen) that was shown in precise technical detail every stage of the industrial process from raw materials through printing to drying. Very interesting. One mural depicted a room full of many (hundreds?) of women painting designs on cloth. From the audio guide I learned that they were painting the blue parts of the design. Other colors could be printed but blue for some reason couldnt be. The printing was done with stone carved patterns that were inked and hammered onto the smoothed (pre-smoothed in a roller) cloth. Then they were hung up to dry.
THere was also a couple rooms to the artist Bethancourt (english, lived in Paris). He was known as the one who painted women with messy hair. Some good paintings and also lithos downstairs.
We found a boulangerie on the way back to the car and picked up sandwiches and a palmiere (my favorite pastry of the moment). We drove to Pont du Gard and had to choose Rive Gauche or Rive Droite. For no special reason other than Google versus MB, or actually because it looked like the south side would be better light for photos, we chose rive droite (south). We walked along a newly laid path from the parking lot to the bridge never passing a ticket booth. On the way we saw a big festival of some sort with fantastical animals like winged golden bull and three headed monster, that looked like they had been part of a parade. THere was singing and music and what appeared to be chants by groups perhaps representing their individual villages.
We then walked across the bridge and up to the rive gauche viewpoint. It was OK there. Chris helped a group of French speakers by taking their group photo. Rhonda and Chris then walked to the museum on that side, and made our way to the ticket booth (we were already inside the ticket perimeter but wanted to be honest). The tickets let us into the museum which showed how amazing the Romans were at engineering these water systems. Not just the construction of the stone aqueducts but the whole thing (lead pipe, closed aqueducts -- the Nimes aqueduct was 90% enclosed -- and the engineering of hydraulics like overflow basins, access ports, shutoff diversions etc.). Then a silly movie with video of the pont du gard and some history.
Then we walked back across and went to the view point on the rive droite. We saw some of the festival people including the three headed monster, making their way out, but the other creatures and groups could still be seen parading and partying on the river right side, not far from where we had seen them. We crossed the bridge and found the path to the view overlook. The path lead to the very end of the top level of the bridge and we could see the tunnel where the water would have continued its way towards Nimes. THen to the photo observation spot ("belvedere" in French). THen the path continued to more photo spots and eventually to the river bank for more photos.
On the way back we stopped to listen to a band (guitars, string bass, drum) playing and singing in spanish (Catalan?). Seemed to be related to some regional festival. I bought Rhonda a beer, which we shared, and it came in a cup with a logo and web site for the upcoming "Chick Pea Festival" in a town about 10 miles away.
On the drive home we stopped at one shop but they were closed (Saturday 740pm) but a few miles later an E.Clerc was still open (8:17pm, open till 8:30) so we were able to hurry in and buy wine, a knife, apricots, a cutting board, cheese, and pringles). Like other places, they started shooing customers out before closing time -- we were told to "take it to the front" at least twice, and despite ignoring the pleas, we were still actually out by 8:28pm. "It's so French!!!"
We drove back by way of Avignon, without getting out of the car, but taking some very narrow and circuitous streets... so we've "seen" Avignon. Very impressive city wall which we drove along (twice).
Back at the hotel we enjoyed some of our C. Reynon sausage, our cheese, wine, and apricots, with three rolls leftover from breakfast which seemed like an entire baguette after RHonda sliced them.
It was a good day!!!
