Avignon

Here are some pictures from our short trip to Avignon during fall break. This is the city in Provence where the popes were based for a few hundred years when things in Rome got a little too hot for them. While in residence, the popes fortified the city and built themselves a pretty impressive palace, and everything is fairly well-preserved as far as I can tell. If you imagine a cross between a stereotypical medieval city and Southdale mall, you will have a pretty good idea of what Avignon is like today.

Our original plan involved renting bikes and riding them to the Pont du Gard, the very famous Roman bridge and aqueduct about 25 kilometers away. When we arrived, however, the famous Mistral wind rendered that not such a great idea. So we wandered around the city, got a bunch of stuff at the market, and had a picnic at the Rocher des Doms park right above the Palais des Papes. By luck, we got together with a friend from the University of Minnesota who is working in Montpellier this year. And we went for a good long walk outside Villeneuve-lès-Avignon on the other side of the Rhone river. Here are some pictures of these exciting events.

 

 I should say Avignon is well preserved with the exception of the famous bridge, which people got tired of rebuilding in the seventeenth century or so. I guess there is a well-known nursery rhyme about dancing on the bridge of Avignon, though neither Jeff nor I had heard of it. 

Lunch! terrine, cheese, olives, tart, baguette, wine.

 Flattering shot of me with Provençal tart.

 The olives were definitely good. Jeff thought they were fabulous. 

I ate two and almost liked them, which is high praise considering how I generally feel about olives.

You get a great view of the countryside from the Rocher des Doms. You can get an idea of that and of what the wind was like from these little videos Jeff took. I later read that due to the Mistral, most trees in this area grow leaning towards the south.

 That second video shows part of the Palais des Papes. This is the biggest gothic castle still standing. Here are some more photos of it.

This is the Fort Saint André near Villeneuve, seen from our walk near the river. 

It was built by king Philippe le Bel towards the end of the 13th century to help keep the popes in line.

Walking around the countryside near Villeneuve. It was nice to get outside of an urban setting for a while, and even the big parks in Paris are full of people most of the time.

So that's the news for the moment; today we are reading books in the apartment and listening to the rain on the roof.