The Camargue, the beach and the bridge

Rolling once more, but with a more balanced mix of chilling and tourism I hope! First stop in France is Canet en Roussilon. The campsite is scarily close to a cross between Butlins and a 1960's holiday camp......I keep waiting for the loudspeaker to hail "hi-de-hi, campers!"

Although it's beach country the weather was awful, so I spent most of the evening curled up around my Kindle with a nice cup of coffee. 

The next day was trundling around the Camargue, visiting Bezier, a celtic-gallic village and a castle who's name escapes me. Blissful to be a tourist in 'cool' weather at a paltry 27 degrees!I even got to see some of the famous Camargue white horses, but couldnt swing the camera into action in time.

Overnighted at Nimes - a pleasant municipal campsite - then headed into the centre of Nimes to see the roman remains. Nîmes became a Roman colony sometime before 28 BC, as witnessed by the earliest coins, which bear the abbreviation NEM. COL, "Colony of Nemausus". Some years later a sanctuary and other constructions connected with the fountain were raised on the site. Nîmes was already under Roman influence, though it was Augustus who made the city the capital of Narbonne province, and gave it all its glory.The Amphitheatre is gorgeous and the surrounding area will be pleasant to amble around when they have stopped digging up all the local roads. 

From Nimes central out to the Pont Du Gard - a roman aquaduct. Here I came across some of the best view nobbling I have ever seen......there isn't one single point where you can see the aquaduct without having paid their exorbitant entry fee. At nearly 20€ just to park the 'van, and that's before I paid entrance fees, I decided to give that particular wonder a miss this time around. Instead here's a picture of a slightly more modern set of bridge remains, just down stream at the modern village of Pont Du Gard.

I'd decided to spend a few days chilling near Cannes, so it was onwards towards Avignon - City of Popes - after a nice tasty fresh french baguette and about-to-escape-and-rule-the-world french cheeses.  Ramparts, built by the popes in the 14th century, still encircled Avignon and they are one of the finest examples of medieval fortification in existence. The walls of great strength are surmounted by machicolated sattlements, flanked at intervals by thirty-nine massive towers and pierced by several gateways, three of which date from the fourteenth century. The walls were restored under the direction of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc - yes, our old friend who did so much of the restoration of Carcassonne - busy man! 

The bridge made famous by the song - Sur le pont d'Avignon - is less impressive but nonetheless a pleasant ramble. I just couldnt do Avignon enough justice in half a day, it's definitely going on to my list of places to go back to. 

Tarragona

Tarragona shares an unpleasant habit with a lot of the rest of Europe : parking for motorhomes is forbidden anywhere near where you want to be, and as a result you spend forever circling around in ever increasing circles trying to find somewhere to park.

That said, its a pleasant town with a long  Roman history : the Roman ruins of Tarraco have been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Part of the bases of large Cyclopean walls near the Cuartel de Pilatos are thought to pre-date the Romans. The aforesaid building, a prison in the 19th century, is said to have been the palace of Augustus. The 2nd century amphitheatre, near the sea-shore, was extensively used as a quarry after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and but few vestiges of it now remain.

The modern and the old rub shoulders all over the place, with major renovations and rebuilding being done to the cathedral - bizarrely they have chosen to do it in concrete grey, which is completely out of kilter with the older sandy colored stone.

Street graffitti is also very prevalent - mostly done to enhance rather than the usual scrawl of illegible monikers. This cat, perched in a bricked up window appealed to my sense of humour...

As befits a major town near Valencia, the streets are lined with orange trees, with some interesting results where the local youths have got bored and whiled away the afternoon lobbing oranges at anti-pigeon spikes on old buildings. The new are still bright and orange, whilst surrounded by a veritable pot-pourri of old dried oranges!

Tarragona is worth a visit - a Ryan Air or Easyjet weekend - but to be honest, not much more than that!

Lusitania's capital - Merida

From Wellington, Talavera and the 1800's back in time to the Romans & the Emperor Augustus. Merida was founded in the year 25 BC, with the name of Emerita Augusta (meaning the bachelors – discharged soldiers – of the army of Augustus, who founded the city; the name Mérida is an evolution of this) by order of Emperor Augustus, to protect a pass and a bridge over the Guadiana river. The city became the capital of Lusitania province, and one of the most important cities in the Roman empire. Mérida preserves more important ancient Roman monuments than any other city in Spain and whilst they dont quite match up to some of the more remote African and Middle Eastern ruins, they are actually pretty damn impressive.

It was a baking hot day, and I think I must have drunk gallons of water as I wandered around. First stop was the Amphitheatre and the theatre , both in remarkably good repair. During the summer months, the Amphitheatre continues to be used as a venue for plays, opera and other such events. There was lots of Roman propaganda to be seen, with worshipful statues of Augustus and Livia, his wife. 

 From the theatre it's a quick trip to the aqueduct - Acueducto  de los Milagros, or aqueduct of miracles which evoked much awe in the inhabitants of Merida. It is now beloved of storks, all nesting happily on the tops of the towers.






The town has cunningly built a high view point to help you get the best view of the circus. They are keen to point out their most famous son, Diocles, who won fame and fortune, both in Merida and in Rome as a charioteer.

 The remaining town fort or Alcazaba was built by the Muslim emir Abd ar-Rahman II. My overriding memory by this point was of the temperature rising into the 40's and finding shade and cool in a neat little underground filtration system and reservoir that they built to provide water to the garrison. Next to the Alcazaba is the Roman bridge across the river, still in use today. Beautiful town, well worth a visit.