The ancient fortified city of Avignon is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has plenty to offer visitors in the way of history, life, youth, art, music and activity. The city is well known for its famous Pont Saint-Béneze (the bridge made famous in the ditty ‘Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse, on y danse...'), the Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes) where the Popes lived for much of the 14th century, and the Festival d'Avignon in summer with its programme of dance, music and theatre.

You can wander the narrow, winding cobbled streets inside the fortified walls for days without tiring of them, but once you've had enough culture, Avignon also has a great shopping area with pedestrianised streets without automobiles - southeast of the Place de l'Horloge, rue des Marchands, rue Rouge and the adjoining streets are full of interesting shops. Quiet streets, secluded courtyards and secret gardens, cosy pavement cafés and fantastic restaurants frequented almost entirely by locals make Avignon the perfect place for a romantic weekend away. 

If you can bear to tear yourself away from the town, various boat tours are available along the Rhone, either local (including dinner-dancing) or to Arles, Tarascon, Chateauneuf-du-Pape and the Camargue.

AVIGNON , great city of the popes, and for centuries one of the major artistic centres of France, can be dauntingly crowded in summer and stiflingly hot. But it's worth braving for its spectacular monuments and museums, countless impressively decorated buildings, ancient churches, chapels and convents, and more places to eat and drink than you could cover in a month. During the Festival d'Avignon in July and the beginning of August, it is the place to be.

Immaculately preserved, central Avignon is enclosed by medieval walls, built in 1403 by the Anti-Pope Benedict XIII, the last of nine popes who based themselves here throughout most of the fourteenth century. The first pope to come to Avignon was Clement V in 1309, who was invited over by the astute King Philippe le Bel ("the Good"), ostensibly to protect Clement from impending anarchy in Rome. In reality, Philip saw a chance to extend his power over the Church by keeping the pope in the safety of Provence, during what came to be known as the Church's "Babylonian captivity". Clement's successors were a varied group, from the villainous John XXII (of Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose fame), to the dedicated Urban V, and later Gregory XI, who managed to re-establish the papacy in Rome in 1378. However, this was not the end of the papacy here - after Gregory's death in Rome, dissident local cardinals elected their own pope in Avignon, provoking the Western Schism: a ruthless struggle for the control of the Church's wealth, which lasted until the pious Benedict fled Avignon for self-exile near Valencia in 1409.

As home to one of the richest courts in Europe, fourteenth-century Avignon attracted hordes of princes, dignitaries, poets and raiders, who arrived to beg from, rob, extort money from and entertain the popes. According to Petrarch, the overcrowded, plague-ridden papal entourage was "a sewer where all the filth of the universe has gathered". Burgeoning from within its low battlements, the town must have been a colourful, frenetic sight

Avignon's low walls still form a complete loop around the city. Despite their menacing crenellations, they were never a formidable defence, even when sections were girded by a now-vanished moat. Nevertheless with the gates and towers all restored, the old ramparts still give a sense of cohesion and unity to the old town, dramatically marking it off from the modern spread of the city.

Rue de la République, the extension of cours Jean-Jaurès and the main axis of the old town, ends at place de l'Horloge , the city's main square. Beyond that is place du Palais , with the city's most imposing monument, the Palais des Papes , the Rocher des Doms park and the Porte du Rocher, overlooking the Rhône by the pont d'Avignon , or Pont St-Bénézet as it's officially known.

Destination Guides > Europe & Russia > Europe > France > Rhône valley and Provence > Western Provence > Avignon

The Festival of Avignon

Unlike most provincial festivals of international renown, the Festival d'Avignon is dominated by theatre rather than classical music, though there is also plenty of that, as well as lectures, exhibitions and dance. It uses the city's great buildings as backdrops to performances, and takes place every year for three weeks from the second week in July. During festival time everything stays open late and everything gets booked up; there can be up to 200,000 visitors, and getting around or doing anything normal becomes virtually impossible. As well as the mainstream festival, there's a fringe contingent known as the Festival Off , using a hundred different venues and the streets for a programme of innovative, obscure or bizarre performances.

Both the gare SNCF on boulevard St-Roch and the adjacent gare routière are close to Porte de la République, on the south side of the old city. The city's two main local bus stations are by Porte de la République (stops "Poste", "Cité Administrative", "Gare Routière" and "Gare" are all within a five-minute walk) and place Pie, in the centre of town. From Cité Administrative all buses go to Place de l'Horloge. If you're driving, the best parking option is the free, guarded lot on the Île de Piot, between Avignon and Villeneuve; a free shuttle runs every 10min from 7am-2am between the parking lot and Porte de l'Oulle, just down from the Pont. 

Cours Jean-Jaurès runs inside the Porte de la République becoming rue de la République, with the tourist office a little way up on the right at no. 41 (www.avignon -tourisme.com ). There's also an annexe at the other end of town by the Pont d'Avignon (May-Sept daily 9am-7pm). 

Around Place de l'Horloge

The café-lined place de l'Horloge , frenetically busy most of the time, is the site of the city's imposing Hôtel de Ville and clock tower , and the Opéra . Around the square, on rues de Mons, Molière and Corneille, famous faces appear in windows painted on the buildings. Many of these figures from the past were visitors to Avignon, and of those who recorded their impressions of the city it was the sound of over a hundred bells ringing that stirred them most. On a Sunday morning, traffic lulls permitting, you can still hear myriad different peals from churches, convents and chapels in close proximity. The fourteenth-century church of St-Agricole , just behind the Hôtel de Ville,  is one of Avignon's best Gothic edifices, though its lovely fifteenth-century facade is sadly scarred.

To the south, just behind rue St-Agricole on rue Collège du Roure, is the beautiful fifteenth-century Palais du Roure , a centre of Provençal culture. The gateway and the courtyard are definitely worth a look; there may well be temporary art exhibitions. To the west of place de l'Horloge are the most desirable Avignon addresses - both now and three hundred years ago. High, heavy facades dripping with cupids, eagles, dragons, fruit and foliage range along rue Joseph-Vernet and rue Petite-Fusterie , with expensive shops and restaurants to match.

Banasterie and Carmes Quartiers

The quartier de la Banasterie , lying behind the Palais des Papes, is almost solid seventeenth- and eighteenth-century, and the heavy wooden doors, with their highly sculptured lintels, today bear the nameplates of lawyers, psychiatrists and doctors.

Between Banasterie and place des Carmes are a tangle of tiny streets guaranteed to get you lost. Pedestrians have priority over cars on many of them, and there are plenty of tempting café or restaurant stops. At 24 rue Saluces, you'll find the peculiar Musée du Mont de Piété , an ex-pawnbroker's shop and now home to the town's archives. It has a small display of papal bulls and painted silk desiccators for determining the dry weight of what was the city's chief commodity.

Museums

Musée Calvet:

A small 18th-century mansion, with classical and modern art, Greek sculpture and a local prehistorical collection.

Musée Lapidaire:

Located in the chapel of the 17th-century Jesuit College. Contains stone carvings and sculptures from the different civilizations, including a "bestiary".

Musée Louis Vouland:

Decorative arts, especially for 18th-century French furnishings, porcelain and faience and tapestries.

Musée Requien:

A large herbarium (worldwide collection); local botanical, geological and zoological collections; excellent natural history library.

Musée Théodore Aubanel:

Printing implements and methods, and rare editions and documents about Avignon from the 13th to 20th centuries.

Angladon Museum:

A rich art collection with some of the most prestigious signatures, in the private home of the art lovers who inherited them. Entry 30 F

 Popes Palace - Palais des Papes

Rising high above the east side of place du Palais is the Palais des Papes. With its massive stone vaults, battlements and sluices for pouring hot oil on attackers, the palace was built primarily as a fortress, though the two-pointed towers which hover above its gate are incongruously graceful. Close up it is simply too monstrous to take in all at once; to see it all, follow rue Peyrolerie around to the south end and look up. Inside the palace, so little remains of the original decoration and furnishings that you can be deceived into thinking that all the popes and their retinues were as pious and austere as the last official occupant, Benedict XIII. The denuded interior leaves hardly a whiff of the corruption and decadence of fat, feuding cardinals and their mistresses, the thronging purveyors of jewels, velvet and furs, musicians, chefs and painters competing for patronage, the riotous banquets and corridor schemings.

The visit begins in the Pope's Tower , otherwise known as the Tower of Angels. You enter the Treasury where the serious business of the church's deeds and finances went on. Four large holes found in the floor (covered over) of the smaller downstairs room served as safes. The same cunning storage device was used for the Chamberlain who lived upstairs in the Chambre du Camérier (just off the Jesus Hall), where the safes have been revealed. As he was the Pope's right-hand man, the quarters would have been lavishly decorated, but successive occupants have left their mark, most recently military whitewash, and what is now visible is a confusion of layers. The other door in this room leads into the Papal Vestiary , where the Pope would dress before sessions in the consistory. He also had a small library here and could look out onto the gardens below.

A door on the north side of the Jesus Hall leads to the Consistoire of the Vieux Palais , where sovereigns and ambassadors were received and the cardinals' council held. The only decoration that remains are fragments of frescoes moved from the cathedral, and a nineteenth-century line-up of the popes, in which all nine look remarkably similar thanks to the artist using the same model for each portrait. Some medieval artistry is in evidence, however, in the Chapelle St-Jean , off the Consistoire, and in the Chapelle St-Martial on the floor above. Both were decorated by a Sienese artist, Matteo Giovanetti, and commissioned by Clement VI, who demanded the maximum amount of blue - the most expensive pigment, derived from lapis lazuli. The kitchen on this floor also gives a hint of the scale of papal gluttony with its square walls becoming an octagonal chimneypiece for a vast central cooking fire. In the Palais Neuf , Clement VI's bedroom and study are further evidence of this pope's secular concerns, with wonderful food-oriented murals and painted ceilings. But austerity resumes in the cathedral-like proportions of the Grande Chapelle , or Chapelle Clementine, and in the Grande Audience , its twin in terms of volume on the floor below.

When you've completed the circuit, which includes a heady walk along the roof terraces, you can watch a glossy but informative film on the history of the palace (English headphones available). There are also concerts: programmes are available from the ticket office.

Next to the Palais des Papes, the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-des-Doms might once have been a luminous Romanesque structure, but the interior has had a bad attack of Baroque. In addition, nineteenth-century maniacs mounted an enormous gilded Virgin on the belfry, which would look silly enough anywhere, but when dwarfed by the fifty-metre towers of the popes' palace is absurd. There's greater reward behind, in the Rocher des Doms park. As well as ducks and swans and views over the river to Villeneuve and beyond, it has a sundial in which your own shadow tells the time.

The Petit Palais, just below the Dom rock, contains a daunting collection of first-rate thirteenth- to fifteenth-century painting and sculpture, most of it by masters from northern Italian cities, like Florence, Bologna, Siena, Venice and Pisa. As you progress through the collection, you can watch as the masters wrestle with and finally conquer the representation of perspective - a revolution from medieval art, where the size of figures depended on their importance rather than position. Highlight of the collection, in room XVI, Botticelli's sublime Virgin and Child depicts a tender Mary, playfully coddling a smiling infant.

The Pont d'Avignon

Behind the Petit Palais, and well signposted, is the half-span of Pont St-Bénézet, or the Pont d'Avignon of the famous song. One theory has it that the lyrics say " Sous le pont " (under the bridge) rather than " Sur le pont " (on the bridge), and refer to the thief and trickster clientele of a tavern on the Île de la Barthelasse (which the bridge once crossed) dancing with glee at the arrival of more potential victims. Keeping the bridge in repair from the ravages of the Rhône was finally abandoned in 1660, three and a half centuries after it was built, and only four of the original 22 arches remain. Despite its limited transportational use, the bridge remained a focus of river boatmen, who constructed a chapel to their patroness on the first of the bridge's bulwarks.

 Rue de la République to Place Pie

Between rue de la République and the hideous market hall on place Pie is the main pedestrian precinct, centring around place du Change . Rue des Marchands and rue du Vieux-Sextier have their complement of chapels and late medieval mansions, in particular the Hôtel des Rascas on the corner of rue des Marchands and rue Fourbisseurs, and the Hôtel de Belli on the corner of rue Fourbisseurs and rue du Vieux-Sextier. The Renaissance church of St-Pierre on place St-Pierre has superb doors sculpted in 1551, and a retable dating from the same period. More Renaissance art is on show in the fourteenth-century church of St-Didier, chiefly The Carrying of the Cross by Francesco Laurana, commissioned by King René of Provence in 1478. There are also fourteenth-century frescoes in the left-hand chapel.

Between the noisy rue de la République and place St-Didier, on rue Labourer, is the Musée Angladon-Dubrujeaud (Wed-Sun 1-6pm, till 7pm in Aug; 30F/¬4.58), displaying the remains of the private collection of Jacques Doucet. Although the collection, which once contained works like Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon and Douanier Rousseau's The Snakecharmer (now in the Musée d'Orsay), has seen better days, it is still very much worth a look. The visit begins with a series of rooms furnished and decorated as coherent units, the first Renaissance and the remainder eighteenth-century (including an orientalist room). The paintings which remain are alone worth the admission price, and include Foujita's Portrait of Mme Foujita and a Self-Portrait , Modigliani's The Pink Blouse , various Picassos and Van Gogh's The Railroad Cars , the only painting from Van Gogh's stay in Provence to be on permanent display in the region.

Through the park by the tourist office (where there's an old British red phone box) you come to place des Corps-Saints , a lively area of cafés and restaurants whose tables fill the square. Just to the north, rue des Lices runs eastwards, past the École des Beaux-Arts, to rue des Teinturiers , the city's most atmospheric street. Its name refers to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century business of calico printing. The cloth was washed in the Sorgue which still runs alongside the street, turning the wheels of long-gone mills, and, although the water is fairly murky and sometimes smelly, this is still a great street for evening strolls, with a large number of cheap restaurants. 

Where to stay in Avignon

Hotel Cloitre St Louis * SPECIAL VALUE
20 Rue Du Portail Boquier - Avignon, France 84000

Average Nightly Rate £60.35. The Clarion Cloistre Saint Louis blends historic architecture with modern design located within the city walls of Avignon. It is set in a 16th century building with the addition of a modern extension designed by the famous French architect Jean Nouvel. Guestrooms have modern design and contemporary furnishings and benefit from the comfort of bathrobes, climate control and minibars; all come equipped with direct-dial phones and cable television with pay movies. Some rooms are in the modern wings with views over the inner garden while those in the old building enjoy views over the old courtyard.

Diners can tuck into a range of Mediterranean and Provencal cuisine offered at Le Saint Louis Restaurant under the historic arches of the cloisters; washed down perhaps with some wine from the nearby Chateauneuf du Pape. Guests can enjoy the tranquillity of the private garden or unwind on the sun deck that borders the unheated outdoor swimming pool (open from May to September). Three conference rooms are available, able to accommodate between 25 and 100 people, with a combined capacity of 215. Banquet facilities are available and guests can enjoy a snack from room service or a drink in the bar. Visitors to Avignon will enjoy the tranquillity of the Dom gardens, 700 metres from the hotel, offering panoramic views over the Rhone and to the north of the city and giving access to the famous bridge. The imposing structure of the Papal Palace 500 metres away is also well worth a visit. For those seeking French chic may find what they are looking for in the many designer boutiques 300 metres from the hotel. The hotel is approximately 90 kilometres, or a 60-minute drive from Marseille Airport.

Area Attractions
Shopping - 300 metres
Pope's Palace - 500 metres
Cathedral - 600 metres
Pont d'Avignon - 700 metres
Dom Gardens - 700 metres
Chateauneuf du Pape -- 20 kilometres (12.5 miles)
Pont du Gard - 18 kilometres (11 miles)
Isle sur Sorgues - 20 kilometres (12.5 miles)
Laberon - 30 kilometres (18.5 miles)
Aix en Provence - 80 kilometres (50 miles)

Driving Directions
There are shuttle buses every 20 minutes to/from Marseille Saint Charles railway station and Aix-en- Provence bus station. A train can be taken to Avignon station.
From Marseille Airport take the A7 in the direction of Lyon and leave at signs for Avignon North and follow directions for 'Centre Ville'. Enter the city walls opposite the railway station and turn left onto Boulevard Raspail and left again onto Rue Saint Charles. The grey gate for the hotel's car park is 50 metres on the left.

Hotel Danieli * SPECIAL VALUE

Average Nightly Rate £58.06. Avignon is one of the few remaining middle age cities, seat of the popes, and considered to be one of the cultural capitals of Europe. more...

Avignon Grand Hotel * SPECIAL VALUE

Average Nightly Rate £61.68. The Hotel Avignon Grand Hotel is a deluxe hotel located in a unique setting, just steps from the center of Avignon. more...