Travel Day to Avignon

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Cue up the church bells, for which I wasn’t ready for at 8a. But we slowly made our way down to coffee and prepare us for the train to Avignon. It was hard to leave the beautiful Nice area (French Rivera), but time to start moving towards Provence, our region of choice for the next 6 days. We walked the few blocks to the train station, found our seats in the top of the train (2 floors) and settled in for the 2.5 hour trip to Marseille. We passed Antibes, Cannes (where the film festival was happening) and other small villages along the Med coast with beautiful villas both on the beach and off. In Marseille we did a quick train change, and the 37 mins to Avignon went super-fast as it was the bullet train!

We arrived to the very modern Avignon TGV station and took another 10 min tram to the city center. We walked through the city about 15 mins to our bed/breakfast which was in a very old alley…Ken thought it was sketchy, but it was just very old! Our B&B, La Petit Saunerie (https://petite-saunerie.com/) for the night in a 1700’s villa and our room was large, quiet and comfie. By the time we arrived, it was about 3ish and it was time to take a breath and relax a bit.

For dinner, we did another Rick Steves recommendation, Le Bercail (https://www.restaurant-lebercail.fr/) which was a 25 min walk across the bridge over the Rhone river. We thought we might get a quick free little ferry across, but it had stopped for the evening, so it was hoofing it across the bridge and then a nice wander down the bike path.

We wandered through the old town, past the Palace of the Popes (the Popes lived here for a couple hundred years), through quiet squares and bustling cafes.

We arrived at Le Bracail and got a very nice table on the river with a wonderful view of the old Avignon walls. We had a great bottle of local red wine and a tasty pizza, along with friendly service, making for a nice meal. The walk back along the river was equally nice and we ended on a square close to the B&B with a nice glass of wine to end the day.

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Comments

[Darella Banks]

Luggage
I always enjoy your stories and pics but I’m wondering about your luggage for this trip. Do you ship it ahead or bring it with you? I guess they keep everything in the van during the day while your biking. I assume you are limited on how much you can take because it’s a biking trip. Is that challenging or have you gotten the hang of it by now? Your overpacking friend is curious!!

[JLB43409]

Hi Darella!
This is very much a supported trip, meaning we pack (as much as we want) and they haul. We are in luxury hotels, some nights one, other two nights and we have to have our bags outside our rooms on the day we leave. One lady on our Parma trip had 4 MASSIVE suitcases....it was quite hilarious for a week long trip!