Sur le Pont d'Avignon
Where I left off my last post, it was 2:00 a.m. and we had just gotten on the bus to France. After a sleepless night on a bus surrounded by chattering French people, we arrived in Avignon around 9:00 in the morning. It was a beautiful day and the town was gorgeous, but I was in no mood to appreciate anything. Seriously, that morning was the crankiest I've been since about... age three at Disneyworld? I was about ten minutes from throwing an honest-to-goodness tantrum.
The first building we saw and good example of the architecture in Avignon: not a lot of color, but adorable nonetheless.
We went to the hostel and attempted to check in, but were told to come back at noon. We made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which buffered my spirits slightly, and headed out to climb the nearby Tower of Philip the Fair. Back in the day when conquering other towns was totally in, the tower was a military fortress.
Yet another military tower that's so much better than the Torre del Oro! It's about ten stories tall, has the narrowest spiral staircase in the world, and offers amazing views of the town. There were also some weird modern art installations inside that I ignored completely.
The tower was also used as a prison, and this is the toilet that the prisoners used. The bars that cross the hole were to prevent prisoners from escaping, though I think that the seven-story drop onto rocks also worked as a pretty effective deterrent.
Writing on the wall of the tower-- yes, that is definitely graffiti from the year 1852. That's pre-Civil War vandalism, folks! Only in Europe.
A view of the Rhone river from the top of the tower.
After leaving the tower, we walked into the non-touristy outskirts of town to seek reasonably-priced breakfast. It was during this time that we realized, once again, that it might have been a good idea to learn a few words in the country's language. Oops. Our entire combined French vocabulary, without exaggeration: bonjour, merci, croissant, quiche, baguette. While we were there, we did manage to pick up "au revoir" and "s'il vous plait". We spent the entire trip trying to figure out how to say "sorry" because we were being such annoying typical Americans.
Miraculously, we found an adorable little cafe and gestured our way to a delicious breakfast.
Ramya (who's vegetarian) unsuccessfully trying to figure out what had meat and what didn't. It's definitely harder than you think to convey "meat" using charades. Pretty much impossible, in fact. She settled for coffee and a chocolate pastry.
Authentic French quiche! Maybe it was just because I'd only had nothing but a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the past 12 hours, but it was unbelievably delicious. I like their "the more, the better" policy on butter.
I'm not sure you can tell the size from this picture-- these are meringues the size of footballs. I like any country with ridiculous portions, so at this point France was seriously growing on me.
After we finished eating, it was past noon. We walked to the hostel (which was certainly the most dreary, prison-esque hostel I've stayed at so far) and I immediately passed out for a two-hour nap. After I woke up Ramya and I were somewhat more energetic and we decided to explore the city for the first time.
The town of Avignon from our hostel. Yep, completely adorable. I want to put Avignon in my pocket and just carry it around.
The first thing we did was visit the famous Bridge of Avignon, built in the 12th century. It was a pretty big deal because it was the first bridge to cross the Rhone river (apparently it used to be pretty terrifying before there were dams). The most important thing, though, is that there is a famous children's song written about it. Here's a YouTube link if you want to hear it, and trust me, you do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQXkNSB9KlY&feature=related. You will never, ever, ever get it out of your head.
The bridge itself is very cool but due to some serious neglect by Louis XIV (that jerk) it doesn't even cross the entire river anymore. Philosophical question of the day: Is it still technically a bridge if it doesn't actually bridge anything?
Next to the bridge there is a tiny museum about the song itself. If I remember correctly the lyrics mean "On the bridge of Avignon, we will dance, we will dance. On the bridge of Avignon, we will dance all in a circle." Deep.
After leaving the bridge we walked through a few of the main plazas in town. Ramya wanted to buy some postcards, so we stopped inside a few random shops to look for them.
LOOK AT THIS SHOP. JUST LOOK AT IT. All the scowling French shop-owners in the world couldn't stop me from taking a picture of it.
A sweet shop that we walked past a few times. Umm, yes, I'll take one of everything, please.
They put "Le" in front of basically everything here, which I love. "I am le hungry." "Do you want a le snack?" "Yes, le get me a le sandwich."
After looking through the various stores and wandering around town, the sun was setting. We had been watching people eat ice cream cones all day with much jealousy, so we found a supermarket and bought a liter of ice cream to eat on the bench by the river. Yes, a liter, and yes, we finished it without a problem.
A half-liter is a very reasonable serving size, in my opinion.
We sat on a bench by the river eating and talking about random things until about 11:00 p.m. when we simply couldn't stay awake any longer. The next day, we woke up, checked out of our hostel, and spent the whole day in town. We started by hitting Avignon's main tourist attraction: the Palace of the Popes.
The front of the Palace of the Popes. What it lacks in decoration it makes up for in sheer size.
You're probably asking yourself, "Why is there a palace dedicated to popes in southern France? Aren't they supposed to be in Italy?" Obscure history lesson: for about a century (1309-1403), Avignon was the Catholic Church's headquarters because of intense conflicts in Rome. They built the palace (and continued adding onto it) as a mini-Vatican. As our included audioguide said, Avignon was the pope's "home away from Rome". Well-played, English-language audioguide, well-played.
One of the many courtyards in the palace. Everything used to be much more lavish, but when they moved back to Rome they took all of the rugs/tapestries/stained glass windows with them.
This picture is a partial list of the members of what was essentially the Catholic Church's accounting department in the 1300s. I took this picture because I enjoy the wide variety of names. Come on, if you walked into their office and said "Hey, Johannes!" literally 80% of the room would turn to look at you.
After roughly two billion stairs and three hours of audioguide, here I am standing on the top of the palace. You can see the top of Avignon's cathedral behind me. (Side note: is this the first picture of me on this blog in which I'm not wearing the Universidad de Sevilla sweatshirt?!? SUCCESS!!)
Nothing special, just the plaza in front of the palace, but I had to take a picture. Avignon, could you stop being so cute for like five seconds? Give my camera a break.
After leaving the palace, we headed about thirty feet to the left and entered Avignon's cathedral. Even though it was technically the church's headquarters for a century, they never really got around to building a new cathedral. They did, however, stick a gigantic golden Mary on top of the old one. Hey, better than nothing!
The front of the cathedral.
The cathedral wasn't as gigantic and gold-leafy as cathedrals in Spain, which I appreciate. It's quaint and quiet and understated, much like the town itself.
After leaving the cathedral, it was past noon and we were pretty hungry. We went out in search of crepes (they're actually harder to find than you'd think) and found an adorable little cafe on a side street. They. Were. Unbelievable. At this point, it's official: French food is so much better than Spanish food. In fact, there's no contest. But then again I consider Wendy's to be fine dining, so you shouldn't put much stock into my opinion.
OH HELL YES ITS CREPE TIME
We finished eating (though honestly, I could have eaten about 30 more of those crepes) and set out to find Avignon's only synagogue.
Literally the only thing on the outside of the synagogue that would suggest what it was. I'm shocked we didn't walk right by it.
It turned out to be unlike any synagogue I've ever seen before-- it was originally built in the 1200s but was remodeled in the 1800s by some presumably crazy architect so it now has Roman columns and a rotunda. (Fact: it is literally the only synagogue in the entire world with a rotunda.) In any case, it was really awesome and the rabbi there was, without doubt, the friendliest person in France. Like a jolly... Jewish Santa.
Part of the inside of the synagogue. Fun fact: Jews in Avignon were called "the Pope's Jews" because the Pope offered them protection here when they were expelled from France.
Having exhausted all of the (cheap or free) tourist attractions, we decided to walk to the park at the top of the hill and relax until it was time to head to the bus station.
An actual working waterwheel, which we saw on the way to the park. Didn't know these still existed. Does Avignon know what year this is?
Avignon has flowers everywhere! Not to reinforce gender roles, but I honestly don't know how straight men live in this town. Even I felt like skipping through the daisies after 24 hours here.
The park was small but very cute. It had great views and a fountain and little carriages where small kids could sit and pedal and pretend to be guiding a horse. Adorable! (I think I've used that word and its variations about 300 times so far this post, I apologize.)
In conclusion, France was way more fun than I expected. The people are generally pretty nice, everything is cute, the weather was perfect, and the food is absolutely awesome. I want to move there, marry a crepe, stop pronouncing 70% of the letters in the alphabet, and live on the Avignon Bridge (or under, if necessary).
Next up: Barcelona PART DEUX