Valence is an excellent town with a beautiful park, cathedral and magnificent shops. The weather has been excellent since we arrived on Sunday, hot sunshine and light clouds - what a difference it makes.The Port de Plaisance l’Eperviere was quite expensive at 21€ per night, but it did have excellent facilities including a Laverie on site.
We enjoyed our time here very much, cycling 3km to town and spending the whole day there yesterday exploring. We had fabulous ice cream in Tasse et Glace washed down with Iced Tea and had drinks in the very aptly named Pub Twickenham! The cathedral and park were just amazing and the architecture of the buildings in the town simply outstanding.
We left this morning sharp at 9am, heading South towards Avignon. The weather was perfect, with light wispy clouds and hot sunshine.
We travelled at 15 knots today as Avignon is 70 miles from Valence plus 6 locks, and we would never have achieved this distance in one day at 6 knots.
The scenery on route was fabulous, with dramatic cliff faces as well as beautiful little towns on the side of the mighty Rhone.
We were kept waiting a full hour at the first lock, not a good start. There was a huge Cruise Ship locking through in the opposite direction, so we had to wait. After that, the rest of the locks were great, and we locked through within 15 minutes. The biggest lock (Bollene) was an amazing 25m descent and with its unique bottoming drainage system, it took only 7 minutes to descend.
We arrived at 5.30pm at Avignon, sailing past the famous Pont with the Capitainerie just beyond it. The town looked amazing when we approached, and we will likely stay here for a week to explore and also sing the famous song on the Pont!
Avignon is 43’57’.225N 004’48’.624E and we travelled 69.62nm today. We have now travelled in total 1765nm and passed through 257 locks.
No comments:
Post a Comment