Another hectic day of sightseeing!

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Headed north today for the next round of sight seeing. We started in Avignon. Thankfully getting there and getting parked was nowhere near as traumatic as we feared it might be. Everything we had read said that driving in Avignon was a complete nightmare. We decided to make use of one of several free car parks on the outskirts of the historical city. Apart from a slightly confusing bit when we were trying to get onto a bridge it was ok. At this point TomTom went a bit crazy and kept saying “bear right, turn right” when we actually needed to turn left. As you can imagine Tim was very calm at this point and never swore at TomTom!

As we headed into the city (there is free shuttle bus but it really isn't that far so we walked) we saw the bridge that the famous song “Sur le pont d'Avignon” is written about. It is actually now less than half a bridge as a lot of it has been destroyed. You can go on the bridge but we thought that paying €4.50 each for the privilege was a little on the expensive side.

Avignon's centre is surrounded by city walls. Once through a gap we were in the very pretty historic area. There is a large square which is dominated by the Palais des Papes, a very impressive building where the popes used to live. Bizarrely in this square there is a very large sculpture of an elephant standing on its trunk! To be fair it did look very cool. We wandered around here then up to the gardens, Rocher des Domes, which give great views over Avignon and the surrounding countryside. I took more photos of the square (I now have it from every possible angle!) before we headed to Place de l'horloge for a lunch of rabbit in a mustard sauce with mashed potato.

Once we had finished strolling around Avignon we got back in the car, and headed to the famous wine growing village of Châteauneuf-du-pape. Tim didn't tire of singing some song that has the line “like a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-pape...” most of the way there!

Châteauneuf-du-pape is a very small but expensive part of the Côte-de-Rhone wine region. I have no idea how much a bottle of it costs at home but I am guessing it is a lot as it seemed to start at about €18 a bottle here and in the same places you could buy a bottle of Côte-de-Rhone for about €3. We did get to have a free taste though so that was good. Even though I am not really a lover of red wine it was very nice.

There is a château in the village so we walked up to it (it would not be a day out if we did not climb up lots of steps or slopes to a high up view point). Although the château is now a ruin it would make a fabulous venue for any number of functions. We wondered if they did use it for things because there was a fair bit of lighting and the floor was in very good condition. One of the outside walls was still intact so you are protected from the wind and have a whole series of windows that give glorious views over the vineyards. If they don't do wedding receptions here they really should.

We finished our day in Orange which is famous for its Roman amphitheatre. Before we visited that we wanted to use the toilet which turned out to be more of a mission than you would imagine. There is no shortage of toilets in France, it is the signs telling you where they are that seem to be lacking! In the end we had to go to the tourist office to get a map with them marked on. Even then we only just found them, unmarked, hidden in a wall. Why??? We had obviously walked past many others too but not seen them.

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