Our combo ticket from yesterday included the Saint Benezet Bridge, so we went there in the morning. Back in the 1100s, a sheperd named Benezet had a vision from God to build a bridge across the Rhone River, so he went to Avignon and proposed the idea to the town elders. They laughed at him and said, “OK, if you can move this stone leftover from the palace [because nobody could lift it], we’ll build it.” Benezet picked it up, carried it to the banks of the river, and set it down. So, they built a bridge there – though during the next several hundred years, parts had to be rebuilt several times due to nasty floods. Eventually, they gave up and didn’t have a bridge across the Rhone until more modern times. The bridge site was really cool and included information about other, more modern bridges. It was basically an ad for a local bridge-building company, but that was OK because it was cool.
We realized it was about time to catch a train to Arles for the rest of the day, so we started walking as quickly as we could back to the train station. We realized that we wouldn’t make it, so we gave up and more slowly got to the train station in time for the next one. Except, we then realized that the “next” train doesn’t run on Sundays! Argh!!! The next train was over an hour later, but at least we found a bus that was going to Arles (but it took 50 minutes instead of 20). The bus went to the Arles train station, and we got off when almost everyone else did. Then we remembered that we needed to go to the train station to figure out when we needed to return. Oops. Luckily, the train station was only a few blocks away.
