Avignon

Saturday 2 August
During the night the ship left Arles and sailed to Avignon, arriving around 8 am.

Avignon is another walled city and visitors enter via the entrances in the city wall.

The Romans would have built walls around the city but the present ramparts were built when the Pope moved to Avignon in the 1360s.

Inside the walls is a collection of largely Medieval buildings with slightly more modern buildings.

There are many narrow streets to explore.

Since 2005 a recent addition is the Green Wall which covers one wall of the enclosed market in Place Pie.

The City Hall was built in the nineteenth century but the clock tower dates from 1471.

Another building in the Place de l'Horloge - the main square in Avignon - is the Opera House.

We were in the Place de l'Horloge early in the morning before the carousel was operating.

The second square in Avignon is Place Square in front of the cathedral and the Palace of the Popes. The clock tower of the City Hall can be seen in the distance.

Walking through the narrow streets the cathedral can be viewed in the distance.

The cathedral is next to the Palace of the Popes (Palais des Papes) where six Popes resided for much of the fourteenth century until the papacy returned to Rome.

At one end of the Place Square is the Petit Palais, which was the palace of the archbishops of Avignon. It is now a museum.

A view from the Rocher des Doms which is the hill and gardens near the cathedral.

The gardens provide a view of the bridge made famous in the song, Sur le Pont d'Avignon. Construction began on the Saint Benezet's Bridge in 1177 and took eight years to build. The bridge originally consisted of 22 arches. It has been rebuilt on a number of occasions. In the seventeen hundreds floods swept swept sections of the bridge and it was not repaired. However the remaining four arches have become a symbol of Avignon.

A view of the river in the other direction.

To return to the ship it is necessary to once agan exit the city via the City Wall.