All Aboard

The picture below describes our day very well—lots of freeways, lots of riding. We left Barcelona at 8:30 and arrived in Arles at 5:30. In between we had  a 20 minute “comfort break,” in the morning and a 20 minute “comfort break” in the afternoon. We had a two hour lunch break in a little French village across the boarder and the rest of the day was spent on a bus.

It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Originally we were supposed to take a train from Barcelona to Nimes and then board a bus to Arles, but sever rains the night before caused flooding in the area at Montpellier and all the trains were canceled. I thought about our guide, Christian, trying to arrange transportation fo forty-six people in the middle of the night and felt an immediate gratitude to him for doing so well. It was a long, tiring ride but we managed well.

We had a lunch break at a little village of 28,000 called Perpignan. The weather there and throughout the day was very pleasant—blue skies with patches of puffy clouds. A beautiful canal runs through Perpignan and the city authorities have made a garden area of the space surrounding the canal. Judy and I had a brief lunch and walked together around the canal. Next in the restaurant were the cutest little girls, very precocious. The little one in particular could was full of curiosity and you could almost see the questions firming in her mind as she saw various people passing by. Judy snuck a picture of them.

Along the way, our guide told us facts and gave us information about the other cities along the way. Our original destination, prior to the storms, was the town of Nimes, best know for its invention of denim, the durable, blue fabric so popular in our blue jeans. Actually, the name blue jeans comes from the blue dye used in the jeans that comes from Africa. We Americans had difficulty pronouncing the real name and simply called it blue jeans. 

Arles, our final destination is an old Roman town with Roman edifices still remaining. It is most interesting in that it still has buildings so many historical periods, including a Roman tower.We arrived in Arles and were able to boar our ship around 5:30. We were so tired, but also so very excited—grateful to be in the care of AMA once again.