Avignon Adventures


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Europe » France » Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur » Avignon
March 25th 2006
Published: March 28th 2006
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The Palais des PapesThe Palais des PapesThe Palais des Papes

I think I like the Vatican better.
Today I went on a field trip to Avignon with my art history class. Thankfully we had nice weather for it. It took about an hour to get there. We immediately went to the Petit Palais, right across the place from the Palais des Papes. The big Palais is amazing. It looks like an old medieval fortress. And the popes ruled from here for a century- right here! It's a pretty amazing thing to contemplate.

The Petit Palais was where the bishop and cardinal used to live, and now it's an art museum. The Louvre took most of the important stuff, but Avignon still has a Bottecelli Madonna and Child which was very nice.

We had some time for lunch before our tour of the Palais des Papes, so Mollie and I got some lunch along Avignon's main avenue in front of the Hotel de Ville. We had ham and cheese crepes with salad and carmelized apples over a tart with ice cream for dessert. It was delicious, and with the sun shining it was a nice time.

We wondered around Avignon a bit after eating, and Avignon seems to be a nice place. Lots of stone. It's
Le Pont d'AvignonLe Pont d'AvignonLe Pont d'Avignon

Old, old bridge that they kept rebuilding, until they finally said "screw it" in the 1700's.
streets lack some of the charm of Aix or even Nimes. I think if there hadn't been any sun I would have found it depressing. There was a beautiful park next to the Palais though with fountains and a large plaza that looked out on the Rhone river. It had great views of the city walls and the Pont d'Avignon.

The Palais des Papes was another interesting place. We each got audioguides because it would be too difficult to do a tour through the whole thing. That was nice because I could go at my own pace. The Palais is basically a tour of a lot of big, empty rooms. Sometimes it's hard to imagine what it was originally like. A big room that was the dining room is just a big room unless you can picture people and tables and chairs filling the vast expanse. My favorite room was the Pope's bedroom that has some of the first "landscape" frescoes on the walls. They were secular paintings of people hunting and fishing with rabbits and dogs and deer appearing around the walls. I still couldn't imagine anyone living there, but the frescoes added some visual interest.

After
Je danse tout en rondJe danse tout en rondJe danse tout en rond

I'm a dancing fool. (Emphasis on the fool.)
the Palais I went to the Pont d'Avignon and danced all around on it, just like in the song. The Rhone river moves pretty quickly I found and the view back on the city was really pretty. When my mom taught me that song about the Pont, I had no idea that one day I would actually get to stand on it!

Sur le pont d'Avignon,
l'on y danse, l'on y danse
Sur le pont d'Avignon,
l'on y danse tout en rond...


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28th March 2006

So good to know I taught you something useful!

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