Avignon

Day 1 in Avignon was pretty straightforward: catch train, check in, grab food, sleep. Had a rather amusing moment where we pulled out cash to pay and the hotelier looked at us like we were nuts and said, “Non, monsier. You pay at checkout.” We thought this was sketchy as all hell (budget travellers always have to be on the lookout for places that try and squeeze extra fees onto checks), til we realized that’s how it works in the real world (i.e. the non-hostel part of the world). We ended up paying the next day, anyway, though. After that, we grabbed dinner at a creperie (and not the 30-euro-a-plate restaurant the front desk sent us to), which was plenty tasty. After that, Facebook, blogpost, and bed.

Day 2 was a planning day. Since we were spending 6 days in Provence, a general schedule was necessary, so we spent about an hour checking train schedules, calling tour companies (…okay, our hotelier did that for us), and asking the front desk about the bus schedule. After that, we got tickets sorted out (which actually took less time than the planning did, walks to and from the station included) and set off to actually see the city we were staying in.

First stop, something horribly, horribly touristy: the tourist train. Most European cities have them: a train on wheels that tourists are shoved into and then driven around the city in. Conductor in full-on engineer attire and decorative front car optional. We’d been snickering at them pretty much everywhere we went, but this train was only 7 euro, so we figured it would be a good way to get oriented to the city. While we weren’t wrong, it wasn’t a mind-boggling experience, either. The train went in front of the palace, up to and through the botanical gardens, down to the River, and past the bridge before coming back to its starting point. Not a waste of 7 euro, but we didn’t really see anything amazing or learn anything new aside from a general orientation.

Anyway, we headed up to the botanical gardens, where we got a great view of the city and saw a few rather adorable families of ducklings in the pond. We grabbed a snack and watched the ducks for a while, then headed down to the Rhone and up to the bridge.

I’d actually never heard of the Bridge of St. Benezet until Anna told me about it right before my trip, but it’s apparently pretty well known, thanks to a nursery rhyme I’d never heard. Basically, it’s a bridge that used to cross all the way over the Rhone, but over years, the current in the river kept knocking down arches, until the town stopped trying to maintain it. Now, just 3 of the original arches remain. Afterwards, we wandered a bit, then came back to the river to see it at night.

Day 3, we got an earlier start than usual (out the door around 10:30, I think) so we could go to the market, which is only open before 1pm. Was pretty cool to see, though we didn’t buy anything (wasn’t there as a sight for tourists, so we didn’t think they’d speak much English). Afterwards, we grabbed coffee and sammiches in Plaza Pie (pronounced pee-yay, though there was a ‘café 3.14’ to make fun of the double pronunciation).

Afterwards, we went to the papal palace. The story behind this is that in the 14^th century, Italy was undergoing a series of civil wars, which made the country a dangerous place to be for foreigners. So, when a French cardinal was named Pope, the king of France persuaded him to move the papacy to Avignon until things settled. The Italians, obviously, were outraged by this, but the papal seat stayed in Avignon until 1377.

The palace was enormous and obviously very grand, but it was hard to picture what it was like when the pope lived there. Avignon and Provencal cities in general have a bare-bones attitude towards preserving historic sites, in that they tend to only maintain the materials that are there, and nothing more. That’s fine, but it meant that the palace is BARE. Most of the frescoes were incredibly faded, there aren’t any tapestries or reproductions on the walls or ceiling, and there wasn’t any furniture. So, while it was cool and obviously amazing, we never really got a sense that it was a palace fit for the pope.

Oh, and Provencal tours are…amusingly literal and factual. They don’t really give you any juicy rumors or stories or tidbits, like most tourist sites; more just straight facts, like, “The ceiling is supported by 6 stone arches,” and “The hall has three windows, which you can see to the left.” I can see and count the arches and windows quite clearly, thank you. The tourist train had been the same way, telling us how long streets were or how tall buildings were, without really saying why they were important or interesting.

After dinner that night, Sean and I split up to wander on our own. Avignon is an incredibly safe city (there are very few foreign tourists around, so pickpockets and the like aren’t a problem), so it was cool to see what the city was like after dark. I wandered down to the river around sunset to grab some shots of the river, then pretty much just wandered the city trying to get lost. I ended up wandering through a residential area, which was fun, as I could hear French families finishing up dinner through open windows. There’s also apparently a lot of cats in these parts, all of whom are crazy skittish. I’d be twenty feet away, and they’d tear off down an alley.

That was our “last” day in Avignon, even though we stayed there for four more nights, as we did day trips every other day. I’ll post those as separate posts later.