Avignon & Rousillon Factoids



  1. Bullet For 68 years there were Popes in both Avignon and Rome, causing a papal schism, and creating the interesting side effect that the people of Avignon spoke Italian for a century after the Pope had left.

  2. Bullet Avignon is also memorialized in the well-known French children’s nursery rhyme “Sur le pont d'Avignon.”

  3. Bullet Built in the 1st century A.D. and currently a UNESCO heritage site, the Pont du Gard, is a living testimonial to the ingenuity of Roman engineering.  It is constructed entirely without mortar, since limestone is a natural adhesive when wet. 

 
 

Named after the red mountain (Mont Rouge) and all the ochre that was mined in this area, Rousillon stuck with us more than any other town (literally: since the persistent red dust adhered to clothes, shoes, skin, just about any surface.)  Traipsing through the Ochre Mountains, we were in awe of the otherworldly rock formations and red earth, but there was also no doubt in my mind that we were largely propelled through our dusty, hot trek by the promise of ice cream at the end of the road, particularly when it was prefaced by Kristen as “the best ice cream place in town.”

 

Red Ochre, A Religious Schism and Roman Ingenuity

Palais des Papes

Pont du Gard

Ochre Mountains