So last week I spent a few days in the French city of Avignon; it was a work trip but I managed to see quite a lot of the city. And what an enchanting place it is, with its medieval walls bathed in sunlight and cobbled streets (sadly it wasn’t very sunny when we were exploring).
We went on a walking tour of the city, and among the architectural delights was the cathedral, the Notre Dame des Doms, with its gilded statue of Our Lady watching over the city…
and the Palais des Papes (Papal Palace) is equally spectacular…
…and even though it was a misty day, the views of the city from the cathedral gardens were breathtaking…
…but what I really loved about Avignon is that despite its storybook/Fable II type appearance, it was a proper working city, full of life. The day we were there there was a demonstration taking place because of the lack of jobs…
..and we spent quite a bit of time in the indoor market, Les Halles, where there were tempting stalls selling everything from cheese…
…to fish…
…and flowers…
…we didn’t have much opportunity to speak French, but took to saying ‘pff’ and shrugging our shoulders in that Gallic style…
.
..and flowing outside the city, the Rhône river was absolutely beautiful, so calming (and who doesn’t remember the words to Sur le pont d’Avignon…)
…it was very sunny, and also windy; as one of my friends said, this photo sums up ‘sunny and windy’ perfectly.
We also got to visit the amazing Pont du Gard, 40 minutes from Avignon, which is an ancient Roman aqueduct bridge and well worth seeing.
On the way to the airport I had a conversation with my cab driver who was an elderly French woman in what can only be described as pitifully bad schoolgirl French; it was like being driven by my mother, but with no arguments involved. How refreshing though, to have a cab driver who is an elderly woman. I can’t imagine that ever happening here.
I absolutely fell in love with Avignon, and would love the chance to go back. And hopefully speak better French next time.
My son was near Avignon when he went on a French exchange trip a couple of years ago – he loved it too.
I haven’t been for years but this post has reminded me of all the reasons to visit this gorgeous city – I even walked (crawled, trying to ignore vertigo) across the Pont du Gard as a child. Coincidentally the current CD of kids’ music that I’m playing for my daughter has a jazzed up version of Sur le Pont d’Avignon as well. Maybe the universe is hinting to me that it’s time to go back?
Looks gorgeous. And all that cheese. Yum.