The Journey Continues

Day 3

Off to Avignon, via the Millau Bridge. Not the most direct route but I wanted to see this bridge. Travelled down the motorways and at times we were the only car on them for miles in front and miles behind,
The cost of fuel on the motorways was1.43 euros a Litre but in the towns was 1.33 a litre - a big difference and we tried to avoid the motorway petrol stations s as much as possible. We arrived at the bridge about 2:30 and it is a beautiful piece of design. I need to write a blog just on the bridge alone and its details.
We left the bridge and decided to avoid the motorway and take a D road. This D road the D999 was a road the cut off a large corner on our journey, so we took it. Boy was that a mistake, it was shorter but no way near a good a road. The D road clung to the mountain side and twisted and turned with huge drops on the right hand side of the car. That with snow lying around did not make for a good drive.
We arrived at Avignon and found our hotel, The St Louis. We had stayed there at least 3 times and found it comfortable and warm. We had recommended this hotel to many a friend who was passing through, but not any more. It has been modernised, updated and lacks staff.
The rooms were very nice and comfortable and the bathroom was all black tiles with brilliant white bath sink and stand alone shower, all the taps were bright chrome. However the toilet was not situated in the bathroom it had its own “closet”. The room did in no way match the bathroom. The toilet seat was wonky, the toilet stand had seen better days and the walls had not been painted in years! Dear oh dear.
We went off into the town to find a restaurant to eat and found one that was very nice and the plat de jour was most acceptable as was the wine and cost.
When we got back to the hotel we headed to the bar, no bar staff, so we hung around looking like we needed a drink and eventually the maitre ‘d turned up and served us, well I would not call it served. He left us a list of drinks available and left for 10 minutes, we were about to go when he returned. On his drinks list we had seen “Les Anis” so we asked for that, he returned 2 minutes later and asked were we had seen this item. Pointing him to the item on the menu he left and returned 5 minutes later with 2 pastis. We drank them and left as no other staff appeared to serve us more. Off we went to bed.