We travelled to Avignon for the day.

I thought 40 minutes would be enough to take a taxi to the train station, buy tickets and board the train for Avignon Centre. But turns out that was about two minutes too little. After getting the tickets, which was a slower process than the ticket machines in Italy, then trying to find a screen showing the departure tracks, we missed the train. Luckily, Avignon has two stations so we bought new tickets for the TGV. The TGV station is faster but the station is outside the city centre so required we also take a taxi.

En route we saw the area around Aix-en-Provence.

We took a taxi to Place de Palais, which is where the Palais des Papes is located. The Palais is a huge palace and fortress used as the residence of popes in the 14th century.

It is the largest Gothic building built during the medieval period and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Six different popes were resident in Avignon when it moved from Rome during a schism within the Catholic church.

Before going inside, we had a rather large lunch.

The restaurant, La Carre du Palais, looks onto the Place de Palais and despite the tourist location, served pretty good food.

We bought tickets for the Palais, the Gardens and the Pont. We were given a tablet which explained a bit about the locations within. Signs directed where you had to go.

Contemporary art pieces were on exhibition around the Palais.

The structure is so large, it changed how the papacy functioned administratively as it permitted the papacy to centralize administration and conduct conclaves in one location.

When the papacy was returned to Rome, the structure was used by two anti-popes but gradually fell into disuse by the church and later was used by the military. The interiors are now empty of period fixtures. A few frescoes remain but in deteriorated condition.

There were some display cases including bits of sculpture that were part of the decoration. This carved dog was rather weird looking.

There were also display boards with historic details but only in French.

Some of the gardens:

The visitors’ route involved a lot of walking and stair climbing. After a seemingly endless climb up a spiral staircase, we ended up on a small balcony,

Then there were more stairs and large empty spaces. After a couple of hours, Scott had had enough and I didn’t want to keep climbing higher so we took a shortcut out of the Palais.

At the exit you can see how some of the structure was built onto the existing rocky outcrop near the river.

I wanted to see the Pont but Scott decided to rest. The route to the Pont went around the Palais.

There is a small museum about the Pont, called Pont St Bénézet. It was built during the medieval period across the Rhone river but only part survives.

I didn’t go on the bridge at Avignon but sang “Sur la Pont d’Avignon” to myself.

We returned on a train leaving Avignon Centre which we could walk to as it is just outside the city walls.

The route took us through Arles.

Back in Marseille, we went to the Sofitel dining room for a light supper.

My clams were good but the pasta was not. The texture lacked elasticity and it had butter on it, which after many weeks in Italy, just tasted wrong.

Scott’s sea bass:

Supper was not so light especially since Scott had profiteroles and I had some cheese to go with the wine which was red so didn’t pair well with the seafood.

The cheeses were all local:

The view from the 7th floor of the Sofitel hotel.