Sunday 13th April - Vaisons La Romaine

The TGV is indeed an impressive means of transportation. From the pure size and neatness of the TGV chamber at Gard Nord in Paris to the very nice conditions within the first class carriages make it indeed one of the better ways to get to the south of France in style and with speed.

We had a great instructor in the ways of the French rail system at Gard Nord in the form of an executive from the International Red Cross who was travelling from Paris back to his home base in Geneva. We met him when he overheard us trying to order a drink of hot chocolate intervening between us and waiter to ensure the successful delivery of the required beverage. He told how to interpret the signage and how to validate our tickets before escorting us to the correct platform. The trip to the Avignon TGV station was over in what seemed just an hour. In reality it was a three hour trip with the train leaving the vehicles speeding along the motorway in its wake. The ride was smooth and extremely comfortable.

On arriving at the Avignon Station we rang the Peugeot people and in no time at all we were fitting the Tom Tom and heading off on our way to Vaisons La Romaine some 40 kilometres from Avignon.

Vaisons La Romaine is lovely French town of around 6000 people situated in the Rhone Valley close to the mountains. The weather was beautiful although there was still snow clearly visible on the upper peaks. The hotel is on the central town square a short distance from a monastery that dates to the middle ages.

The monastery is located across a Roman bridge that dates from the Year 0 AD. Behind the hotel were the remains of the Roman occupation of the area.

We were to use Vaisons La Romaine as a base for three days in the Rhone Valley. Soon after we arrived we started our exploration of the town at the Monastery. The weather was just beautiful and the scenery magical. We completed the day with dinner on a terrace overlooking the bridge and river drinking copious quantities of local wine and chatting away in extremely broken French-English to the restaurant owner

The Hotel Burrhus we would recommend to anyone. It is a lovely two star hotel with nice polite service with receptionists who have quite adequate English skills. The rooms are freshly renovated. It is right on the main square in the middle of town. There are plenty of restaurants in the immediate area and there is car parking in the square immediately in front of the hotel.