Friday 12th September Avignon

 Friday 12th September 

We are staying in Avignon as it our driver’s rest day.With a slightly later start we had a walking tour around some of Avignon sites and shops with our tour leader, Constance.

We walked through this cutting by the palace of the Popes quite often it is very impressive I feel, shows how the buildings are built on the rock, I should have asked how they cut through, but was too busy appreciating it at the time.

Our walking tour took us through the main square - Place de l’Horloge - not an easy place to view l’horloge (clock) but here it is

On this square are the Theatre and Hotel de Ville which is sort of a town hall.

Such grandeur! We checked out some of the local shops, sampling goodies on the way, truffle shops and nougat, I refrained from the nougat shop having learnt my lesson last year, after spending an amount I will not admit to on nougat. It hurts more when you convert it to New Zealand dollars, I informed an Australian tour mate -Don’t what ever you do convert it back!! We walked on to the markets, in a slightly more modern building but one with garden walls. There is a parking area up there.

I refrained from taking more pictures of tomatoes, but got some of this fruit pronounced Ju ju bey - size and pip like an olive, crunchy and tastes a little bit like apple.

And some glorious figs behind which I snacked on with goats cheese the following evening. 

I didn’t even consider sampling any of these little darlings, probably just as well when you look at the price - frogs legs! However we did purchase sandwiches for our lunch, found a bar outside to buy drinks and sat and ate our lunch there, people watching.

I ended up walking around with the two Australian couples, we do seem to stick together us antipodeans. We had a visit to the Palais de Papes, as Avignon was the seat of the popes when they were in France, a monstrosity of a building built in the 14th century starting with Benoit XII, with successive popes adding to the building. 

What is interesting about it is that it is virtually empty, as all the furnishings and treasures went back to Rome when the seat went back there. There were some really interesting art installations there, which proved a wonderful contrast to the stone of the chambers.

Oops I saw later that you weren’t supposed to take photos in rooms where the frescos were, there were some lovely examples in some rooms.

I really enjoyed the gardens, whilst in them and looking down upon them and the roof scape of Avignon.

The chimney in the kitchen.

I think this is the chapel, with yet another installation, part of the installation are the shadows thrown on to the walls.

I took a few photos of this little golden lady from various view points around the Palace. There were a couple of tombs and some carvings, also a bust of one of the popes, which I had thought I had photographed, but sadly hadn’t because it had a distinct likeness to one of our tour members! His wife informed me she had a photo.

From outside looking back towards the palace and my golden lady

We had to get ourselves a drink whilst we waited for the Musee de Petit Palais to open so we could see a Botticelli. They kept changing the time on a note pinned to the door.

There are lots of museums and Palaces in Avignon, we just touched on a couple the last for the day being the Palais du Roure. Apparently Buffalo Bill visited Avignon and was very popular and left something behind.

These we saw in the morning, But went back to see the interior in the afternoon, something a little different with furnishings from the 19th century mostly.

Some interesting plant combinations

And a tower just around the corner from our hotel. We had a group dinner that evening in one of the little side streets, dining outside is a pleasure in these temperatures, then Friday was done.