The Broken Bridge of Avignon - Pont Saint Benezet

When we arrived at Avignon via the speedy TGV train from Lyon, the weather looked threatening. Anytime the sky will open up and rain all it wants...somehow we didn't let this grey sky deterred us from getting out from out hotel - which was again a really nice boutique hotel. JS was so delighted upon checking in bcoz we have the whole barn to ourselves. Yes we stayed in a barn like hee-haww minus the hay. The property converted the barn into a really nice luxurious suite. Anyway posting on our barn, I mean our hotel another time.


Monkey was so eppy!!! we are here!!! we are here in Avignon in front of Pont d'Avignon and started dancing and singing and circling around.

JS -_-"

Okie I wasn't the only one doin it. Those who grew up with sur le Pont d'Avignon will know this song....u'll notice French/local tourist will do the dance underneath this bridge. By the way it's a 16th century song. I lurve it!!! I know...I have a really old soul inside me.

Recently I heard this song again during my French Language lesson at home. My private tutor made me dance and he sang. LOL and nope I did not but he sang so nicely coz this is how he sang to his child as she sleeps beautifully :))))))) 

JS called it the broken bridge of Avignon~~~~ bcoz seriously from engineering point of view, there's too many flaws in the construction of this bridge that now became a world heritage site. JS concluded that the French can't build bridges as good as the Romans!!!!

Hahahaha and yes I had a good discourse on construction of bridges at this visit. JS was a civil engineer or he called himself the sh*t engineer. From the design and constructions of buildings, bridges, canals, sewage??? hence the term sh*t engineer!!! LOL but his passion is still bridges so this lil Pont d'Avignon makes such an excellent study.

Today there's only 3 arches left. During its glory time, there were 22 arches, spanning not just across the 2 islets/islands but over to the far far land with another castle on top of the hill. Oh well u can't see it from the pic here.

The river was muddy on that day from the rain the nite before.

This bridge was called Pont Saint Benezet officially. Locals and tourists prefer it to be called Pont d'Avignon after that popular song. :)))

built in 1177, yes that's 837 years old. Seriously it isn't that old compared to many other monuments that are still standing tall and majestic in Europe. That's why JS said this bridge has got a lot of flaws.

Don't jump my dear!!! it's just some imperfection on this bridge....errrr yeah I guess there's quite some imperfection there for it to collapsed like this. JS explained it isn't something like imperfection of an art piece. It's major engineering failure. And to further understand this, I took the audio guide with me.


Look at the horror face!!! as I was listening as to why the bridge collapsed.

Hello Butler!!! I am hungry....please fetch some ham sandwich and a bottle of crisp chilled Rhone White wine. I don't mind a picnic here :)))))))

The view is rather beautiful here. We spent almost 1.5 hours on this broken bridge. There's also a small chapel here.

Titanic???
kekekekeke nope I am not gonna jump, the water looked muddy after the heavy rain with a lot of debris floatin around. Afterall this is the main Rhone River so everything from Lake Geneva flows all the way through here into the Mediterranean sea.

JS waited for everyone and every single tourist to be out of sight before snapping this pic. Great job!!

WAHHHHHHH I'm terrified of heights!!!!
Hmmm the opposite side is just the islet, not even the mainland yet. So this broken bridge passed through 2 islets on the Rhone River before reaching the other side. That's about 900m, almost a kilometre long.

Then we decided we should come back for a lil picnic...oh not on the bridge but on the other green green side at the islet itself!!! oh well Avignon isn't that big, we went everywhere on foot for 5 days here.

from the end of the broken bridge u could see the Palais des Papes, the "Vatican of Christianity" for official 6 Popes and 3 unofficial ones, so a total of 9. Heh heh heh aren't u surprised that 6 popes resided here and "ruled" from this Huge fortress in Avignon, South of France.

More info to come in separate posting on Palais des Papes.

hey the rain isn't here yet and here I was walking around with my umbrella~~~~
the sun continued to shine for the rest of the day.

and went around exploring Avignon until the sun said goodbye for the day. It's such a lovely city~~~we didn't expect so much from a small medieval ancient town. We decided to come here all because of winery visit at Chateauneuf-du-Pape. So it's really worth making the trip down here.

Watch this space for more of our lil adventure down south of France!!!!