France Day 10: Pont du Gard and the Ardeche Gorge
We arrived at our hotel in Lyon very late this evening after a turbulent and tragic day, and we have a very early start tomorrow.
The heat and our fairly busy schedule of sightseeing took its toll on our group, especially after yesterday's hot afternoon spent climbing the steep stairs and navigating the uneven surfaces of Nimes' ancient Roman amphitheater. One of the older women reported feeling sick and short of breath, but refused Carola the tour guide's offers to call a doctor, insisting it was just dehydration.
When she didn't show up for our departure this morning, Carola went to check on her.
A few moments later, Carola came stumbling out into the hotel's lobby, gasping for breath, white as a sheet. She collapsed onto her knees, sobbing, and the other Karin in the group, who is a retired nurse, came to her aid, guiding her to one of the lobby sofas until she'd recovered enough from her shock to tell us what that she'd entered the missing woman's hotel room, to find her sprawled dead on the floor.
A short period of frantic activity ensued, during which the doctor and the local police were called (it being a Saturday morning, it took nearly an hour for them to show up), and the rest of the group milled around, speculating on what had happened (and not a few members of the group, including Madame Malcontent, promptly began declaring that the driver and tour guide had been negligent in not forcing the dead woman to see the doctor the night before.
Once the doctor arrived, he investigated briefly, and signed a certificate attesting that this appeared to be death of natural causes. Then a young French policeman, Carola, and two of the members of our tour group (the other Karin and a gentleman who proved to be a retired member of the Stuttgart police force) returned to the room to inventory the dead woman's belongings and to pack them up for transport to her next-of-kin.
Then the hearse arrived, and we all fled to the garden terrace, not wanting to see the corpse wheeled out.
At this point, nearly three hours had elapsed from our original departure time. Much to our surprise, Carola and the bus driver declared their intention to proceed with most of the day's planned itinerary by eliminating our long lunch break in some village or another, and compressing our tour of the Ardeche Gorge to a drive with a few hasty photo stops.
And so, much subdued, we set off for the Pont du Gard, located some distance from Nimes. On the drive over, the retired policeman explained that the dead woman had not taken out any travel insurance, hence her reluctance to call a doctor yesterday, since she would have had to pay the visit out-of-pocket. Now, her next-of-kin, an elderly brother, will be stuck making the arrangements (and paying the costs) to transport the body back to Stuttgart.
I have to say that I wasn't really in the mood to do any sightseeing after all this, but the Pont du Gard was every bit as magnificent as the photos portray it, and a whole heck of a lot more massive than I'd expected.
Before walking across the visitor's bridge, constructed alongside the aqueduct, we made a quick stop at the fancy new visitor's center. There, huge informational placards showed how the Romans had transported massive quantities of drinking water from the springs at the nearby village of Uxes down to the city of Colonia Augusta Nemausus (present day Nimes) using a network of large clay water mains and the aqueduct, all constructed and laid out in a subtle incline, so that gravity aided the flow of water to the city, but so that the water didn't flow too fast and damage the water delivery systems.
After grabbing a hasty lunch at the visitor's center, the bus lurched and swayed over a series of narrow country lanes, climbing ever higher into the rugged limestone hills, passing endless vineyards and, as we gained altitude and the sunlight turned to hazy cloud, we passed numerous lavender fields (no longer in bloom this late in the year, though). We also saw a number of crumbling, roofless limestone shepherds' huts, some with huge fig trees growing in the enclosed spaces, and a lot of kayak and canoe rental shops.
The reason for the boat rentals became clear soon enough, as we came into the spectacular river gorge of Ardeche, white limestone cliffs towering over a thousand feet (300 - 400 meters) over the narrow green ribbon of the river. The water was crowded bathers and boaters, and spending a day kayaking down the length of the gorge is apparently a favorite weekend hobby around these parts.
After driving the length of the gorge, and making our obligatory photo stops, we continued on to Lyon, which proved to be a very slow drive as we approached the city and got caught in the weekend traffic jostling for precedence at the toll gate.
Finally, weary and starving, we arrived at the hotel around 8:30 pm.
Tomorrow, we undertake the long drive back to Stuttgart, where I'll be staying until Wednesday. Then, it's off for a sightseeing tour of some of Germany's UNESCO World Heritage cities with Tiana, a friend from my Documentum days. Our hotels advertise free Internet, so hopefully my travel journal postings will become more regular once we begin the next stage of this trip.
The heat and our fairly busy schedule of sightseeing took its toll on our group, especially after yesterday's hot afternoon spent climbing the steep stairs and navigating the uneven surfaces of Nimes' ancient Roman amphitheater. One of the older women reported feeling sick and short of breath, but refused Carola the tour guide's offers to call a doctor, insisting it was just dehydration.
When she didn't show up for our departure this morning, Carola went to check on her.
A few moments later, Carola came stumbling out into the hotel's lobby, gasping for breath, white as a sheet. She collapsed onto her knees, sobbing, and the other Karin in the group, who is a retired nurse, came to her aid, guiding her to one of the lobby sofas until she'd recovered enough from her shock to tell us what that she'd entered the missing woman's hotel room, to find her sprawled dead on the floor.
A short period of frantic activity ensued, during which the doctor and the local police were called (it being a Saturday morning, it took nearly an hour for them to show up), and the rest of the group milled around, speculating on what had happened (and not a few members of the group, including Madame Malcontent, promptly began declaring that the driver and tour guide had been negligent in not forcing the dead woman to see the doctor the night before.
Once the doctor arrived, he investigated briefly, and signed a certificate attesting that this appeared to be death of natural causes. Then a young French policeman, Carola, and two of the members of our tour group (the other Karin and a gentleman who proved to be a retired member of the Stuttgart police force) returned to the room to inventory the dead woman's belongings and to pack them up for transport to her next-of-kin.
Then the hearse arrived, and we all fled to the garden terrace, not wanting to see the corpse wheeled out.
At this point, nearly three hours had elapsed from our original departure time. Much to our surprise, Carola and the bus driver declared their intention to proceed with most of the day's planned itinerary by eliminating our long lunch break in some village or another, and compressing our tour of the Ardeche Gorge to a drive with a few hasty photo stops.
And so, much subdued, we set off for the Pont du Gard, located some distance from Nimes. On the drive over, the retired policeman explained that the dead woman had not taken out any travel insurance, hence her reluctance to call a doctor yesterday, since she would have had to pay the visit out-of-pocket. Now, her next-of-kin, an elderly brother, will be stuck making the arrangements (and paying the costs) to transport the body back to Stuttgart.
I have to say that I wasn't really in the mood to do any sightseeing after all this, but the Pont du Gard was every bit as magnificent as the photos portray it, and a whole heck of a lot more massive than I'd expected.
Before walking across the visitor's bridge, constructed alongside the aqueduct, we made a quick stop at the fancy new visitor's center. There, huge informational placards showed how the Romans had transported massive quantities of drinking water from the springs at the nearby village of Uxes down to the city of Colonia Augusta Nemausus (present day Nimes) using a network of large clay water mains and the aqueduct, all constructed and laid out in a subtle incline, so that gravity aided the flow of water to the city, but so that the water didn't flow too fast and damage the water delivery systems.
After grabbing a hasty lunch at the visitor's center, the bus lurched and swayed over a series of narrow country lanes, climbing ever higher into the rugged limestone hills, passing endless vineyards and, as we gained altitude and the sunlight turned to hazy cloud, we passed numerous lavender fields (no longer in bloom this late in the year, though). We also saw a number of crumbling, roofless limestone shepherds' huts, some with huge fig trees growing in the enclosed spaces, and a lot of kayak and canoe rental shops.
The reason for the boat rentals became clear soon enough, as we came into the spectacular river gorge of Ardeche, white limestone cliffs towering over a thousand feet (300 - 400 meters) over the narrow green ribbon of the river. The water was crowded bathers and boaters, and spending a day kayaking down the length of the gorge is apparently a favorite weekend hobby around these parts.
After driving the length of the gorge, and making our obligatory photo stops, we continued on to Lyon, which proved to be a very slow drive as we approached the city and got caught in the weekend traffic jostling for precedence at the toll gate.
Finally, weary and starving, we arrived at the hotel around 8:30 pm.
Tomorrow, we undertake the long drive back to Stuttgart, where I'll be staying until Wednesday. Then, it's off for a sightseeing tour of some of Germany's UNESCO World Heritage cities with Tiana, a friend from my Documentum days. Our hotels advertise free Internet, so hopefully my travel journal postings will become more regular once we begin the next stage of this trip.