Avignon

The Mediterranean from the train.

From Carcassonne, we took two trains to Avignon. Along the way, the train passed very close to the Mediterranean, no more than half a mile or so in some places, giving us some great views of the coast. Avignon is located on the Rhone River on the very western edge of the Provence-Alpes-Cotes d'Azur region ("the California of France"), a region located in southeastern France and containing such famous cities as Marseilles, Cannes, Monaco, and also the French Riviera. We didn't go that far into the region, though, and we stayed inland along the Rhone ("the Ohio River of France").

Palace of the Popes (the first time Lisa saw it, it was
celebrating an anniversary and had a big red sign, saying
"ca va durer longtemps" "it will last a long time.").

Part of the story of Ariadne.

Avignon is famous because it was the home of the Popes for about sixty-five years on the 14th century. I won't go into all the details, but because of conflicts between various factions of cardinals and between popes and the king of France, a French cardinal was elected Pope in 1309. He decided he didn't want to move to Rome and stayed in Avignon. He was followed by six more Popes in Avignon, all of them French and all of them increasingly under the control of the French king. It was only in 1377 that the Papal court was moved back to Rome (although because the Popes had purchased the city of Avignon from the kings of Sicily, who ruled the area, so Avignon wasn't united with the rest of France until 1791, following the French Revolution!). Thus, the major sights in the city relate to the period of Papal residence in Avignon.

14th-century funeral monument.

Pont Saint-Benezet

We got to Avignon in the afternoon and walked a few blocks from the train station, through the old city walls, to our hotel. There, one of the owners, Pascal, gave us a map and TONS of information about the city - what sights to see, names and locations of restaurants to try, locations of restaurants to avoid ("they're touristy - not for you," he said) and shopping areas. We then headed out to the Petit Palais, which used to be a cardinal's residence next to the Papal Palace and is now an art museum. It was almost all religious art from the 14th and 15th centuries and almost all of it was Italian. It was sort of strange to see works by the same artists we had just seen in Florence the week before! Beyond the standard "Madonna and Child"s, there were some nice things - a work by a young Botticelli, some interesting paintings from the side of clothes storage chests showing the myth of Ariadne, a cool painting of the Last Judgement and, Lisa's favorite, the remains of a late 14th-century funeral monument of a cardinal that she can reference in her dissertation. There was also an exhibit on how to restore medieval paintings, although it was all in French so I didn't get much out of it.

Lisa on the hill above the Pont Saint-Benezet

After the museum, we went next door to the Palace of the Popes. We tried to buy a combo ticket for the palace and the broken bridge of Avignon (inspiration for a French song) but the ticket guy said the bridge was closing soon and we probably wouldn't have time to see both places unless we hurried. We decided to try to get to the bridge first then come back to the palace, but we couldn't figure out how to get there. Instead, we ended up in a park on the hill above the river looking down at the bridge and then we headed back to the palace. Lisa had already visited it before, and I was okay with not actually going out on it, even if it meant we didn't get to sing the song that Lisa said was known there (Sur le pont d'Avignon l'on y danse l'on y danse. Sur le pont d'Avignon l'on y danse tous en rond).

Cloister in the Palace of the Popes.

Pope's dining room.

Pope's chapel.

Lisa had been in the palace in the summer of 2004 when she studied in Montpelier and she remembered it as being empty and boring. There were certainly very few furnishings (like the abbey at Mont Saint-Michel) but some of the rooms contained some small exhibits and interpretive plaques that seemed fairly new. As a whole, the palace seemed to be a medieval castle that just happened to be owned by the Pope: huge rooms, Gothic architecture, and lots of stone. But we both agreed it was a cool place. The size of the dining room and the chapel were awe-inspiring - you have to have room for the entire Papal bureaucracy to eat and pray! - and some of the Pope's private rooms still had some amazing frescoes on the wall (although we couldn't take pictures of those). We couldn't see the whole palace, though, because it's also now used as a convention center and so they were setting up some of the rooms for the next convention. Plus, in the courtyard, they were erecting a huge stage for Avignon's annual month-long theater festival in July. We left when we got kicked out at closing time (7 pm) and, on the way, got a free postcard in the gift shop because neither we nor the cashier had change and she just didn't want to deal with it. It was quite nice of her!

Aaron on the street outside the Popes' Palace.
Note the new hat.

After the palace, we had dinner at one of the restaurants Pascal recommended. It wasn't fancy, just good solid, cheap Provencal cooking. As we left, a small wedding party entered, fresh from being married at the mayor's office. In France, the state only recognizes marriages performed by local mayors so those are the official ones. If you have the desire, time, and money, you can have an "extra" church wedding, but everyone gets married at the mayor's office first for it to be official. Anyway, it was fun to see such a happy group of people sharing champagne and dinner.

Market hall.

The next morning, we did something very unglamorous - laundry! For the only time on one of our adventures, we decided we needed to wash clothes. We were going to be gone so long that we knew we couldn't carry enough clean clothes with us so we asked Pascal about a local laundromat, which, of course, he could direct us to. While the laundry was going, we walked to Avignon's market hall. I was expecting a good old-fashioned French market area with lots of small booths and minimal roofing. Instead, it was a modern building with lots of vendors inside, not unlike the North Market in Columbus (except Avignon's was full of American tourists for some reason!). We bought supplies for a picnic lunch - bread, cheese, olives, strawberries, and apricots - then went back to collect our laundry. As we left we gave some of our extra soap (we had to buy two pellets from the machine) to a young American kid with a huge backpack doing laundry. We imagine he's spending several months on his own backpacking across Europe! We dropped off the laundry at the hotel then headed back to the train station for an afternoon trip to Arles.