Avignon; Friday, 24 November, 2023

04:30 is a really unpleasant time for the alarm clock to go off, but with a 05:15 checkin it was my fate this morning as I had a quick shower and headed out of the airport hotel I’d spent the night in to walk over to Hatton Cross tube station and the first Piccadilly line service of the morning over to Terminal 3. A smooth journey through the airport, and an early call to the gate for a swift boarding, only for it to be hampered by an air traffic control restriction in Marseille due to forecast strong winds. We eventually moved off the stand a couple of minutes ahead of our originally scheduled time and started a long taxi around the airfield before finally lifting off into the skies almost 25 minutes later.

The strong winds were with us all the way from London, though thankfully on our tail the entire time so barely 1 hour 20 after departing Heathrow we were touching down in Marseille well ahead of schedule. A quick journey through the airport, despite immigration being quite busy and onto the bus 20 minutes ahead of the one I needed up to Vitrolles station to catch my train over to Avignon.

The train was pretty full, and I only managed to get a weird bench style seat that looked like it had come out of a booth of a pub, but it was comfortable enough for the hour long journey. We arrived in Avignon just after midday and I chanced my luck wandering over to the hotel to see if my room was ready yet. Surprisingly it was and they were able to check me straight in so I could drop off my luggage, freshen up and then head out into the city.

The hotel was right opposite the city walls the surround the oldest part of the city so they were my first stop of the day having a brief wander along both the outside and inside of the walls before I made my way down to the main gate, now called Republic Gate and with it the main road into the centre of the old town.

I wandered up the Rue de La République, stopping off briefly at the ruins of the cloister of the Saint Martial church. Today the church is a theatre and the tourism office, but at one point it was the starting point of two pilgrim routes one heading West to Santiago de Compostella and the other East to Rome.

I continued up the main road and into the main central square – Place de l’Horloge which is home to the impressive Town Hall and lots of restaurants with tons of outdoor seating unsurprisingly unoccupied on a very windy and chilly November afternoon. A short walk away from the Place de l’Horloge is the Place de Papes, Popes Square which houses the Palais des Papes which more resembles a Papal Fortress then a palace as well as the city’s Cathedral – Notre Dame de Doms d’Avignon.

Just behind the cathedral, and occupying the highest ground in the city centre are the Jardin des Doms which I headed up into to take in the views over the city, across the River Rhône, which dominates the city and once was the international boundary between the Kingdom of France on the opposite bank and the Holy Roman Empire, especially during the 14th century when the Popes relocated away from Rome to Avignon. From here there are excellent views not only of the city, the River and the Fort of Saint-André on the opposite bank (built by the French King to demonstrate his power to the city) but also out into the wider countryside and in the distance the peak of Mont Ventoux.

This is also a great spot to look down on the Pont Saint-Benezet, otherwise known as the Pont d’Avignon – one of the symbols of the city. Originally the only crossing point of the Rhone round here, the bridge was never up to the job of handling the powerful river and most of the bridge was long ago lost, leaving just a short stub jutting out from the land near the Papal Palace becoming one of the symbols of the city.

After taking in the views from the park I headed back down to the Place des Papes and popped into the Cathedral to have a look around that before continuing to wander through the old town, eventually finding myself down at the Pont d’Avignon arriving just a couple of minutes before sunset so I was able to get some beautiful views of the bridge bathed in the glow of the setting sun, and then from slightly further down the river bank the views of the outer walls of the city with the towers of the Palais des Papes and the Cathedral rising up inside.

I headed back into the old town to find somewhere to grab dinner and then after another short wander through the city headed back to my hotel room and a well deserved early night.