Strolling trough the streets of l'Isle
sur la Sorgue, you will be happy to discover old padding wheels along
rivers and canals .
Forteen padding wheels are still
turning round, scattered on the numerous Sorgue river arms. They were
more than seventy in the 19th century. The Sorgue river supplied the energy
for silk spinning, dyeing, paper mill, seeds and oil mills.
L'Isle sur la Sorgue was then an
industrious city, from which today the activities finished a long time
ago, but memory is still present and maintained by the inhabitants.
Padding wheels have today just a
decorative fonction, but it's a kind of gripping scene : the heavy and
mossy pads, waterlogged with the clear water from the Sorgue river rise
slowly, streaming with sparkling water under the sun.
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