Really Avignon is only the Pope’s Palace (Palais des Papes) plus the Pont D’Avignon bridge for us tourists.
To be fair, I did have quite a walk round as well, especially into the older part of the city. I also wanted to check out the SNCF AutoTrain Station location for my trip to Paris on the Monday.
With the prospect of yet another hot day, I made an early start, as it was just over an hour away from the campsite in Cucuron. Despite that, I ran straight into what I thought was the rush hour. However, when we got to it, the near standstill was caused by repairs to one of the arches of the Pont d’Avignon, in that the main ring road (which runs under said arch) was cut down from 2 lanes to 1, with no temporary provision of a second lane. Subsequently, I missed the turning for the huge underground car park adjacent to the palace and had to go round the whole circus again…..
Anyway, we eventually got there. One carpark feature I liked was the provision of red/green space status lights above each parking bay. Made life a lot easier to spot a space.
Oh, by the way, I won’t mention the gorgeous weather with pure non-cloudy blue sky…..
Whatever your religious viewpoint, you cannot but be impressed with the palace. I was also impressed with the way that the organisers have made it relatively easy for people to understand what’s going on. When you first go in, you get a headset and a tablet computer (which turned out to be completely compatible with my electronic ear trumpet – much to my surprise…), which gives you a route round the place. Mind you, what with that lot and a camera as well, it took a few minutes to get properly organised.
In the individual rooms, there are sort of “wifi” hotspots, which you use to initiate the information about that particular room on the tablet. Even more clever is that by moving the tablet around the room and pointing to parts of the room, it shows you what it would have been like at the time, eg wall hangings, furniture, paintings, etc. Very, very clever, especially for a non-history person like myself.
Since this is one of the major international tourist attractions in the area known to most visitors, I’ll just leave you with a few photo’s of some of the particular items of the palace that specifically attracted me.
Then it was a pleasant walk down to the pont – I just followed the crowd, there’s always a party from Japan with the leader’s flag…..
They had audio guides here as well, very useful. Also, in a basement part of the entrance tower, there’s a very informative display and film about how the they think the bridge was originally built and the detailed ongoing investigation about its structure. Interesting for me anyway…….
There was also a storyboard about the world famous song (see below, with ALL the words), which seemed to suggest it was “sous” (ie under) rather than “sur”( ie on). Whatever……
Then it was lunchtime ! Knowing how the French habit is to stop IMMEDIATELY at noon, I selected one on the main square called In et Off Cafe-Restaurant. Got seated before the crowds descended.
Obviously a bit pricey because of where it was (in the same square as the Palais), but nevertheless very enjoyable – my treat for the week ! Ten minutes after I took the photo’s it was FULL !
Mind you (as I later found out on my walk round the city) there were so many restaurants and cafe’s in the centre of Avignon that you could eat yourself to death !