from Pillar to Post: a traveller's guide to stuff: the city of mysterious energy

Kiss count: 3. Left-Right-Left.

What can I say about Avignon? It is a fortified city, with its almost completely preserved walls considered to be one of the finest examples of medieval fortification in existence. Its streets and café-filled squares are lovely, its museums are very interesting, and again the architecture is quite aesthetically pleasing. It is home to the Pont d'Avignon (bridge of Avignon) - officially called Pont Saint-Bénezet - which spans almost across the Rhône (all but 4 of its 22 wooden spans were washed away by a catastrophic flood in 1668) and is the star of the famous French song, "sur le pont d'Avignon." The city is most famous for its history under Papal rule between the 14th and 18th centuries, which came about due to political turmoil in Rome at the beginning of the 14th century, forcing the pope to migrate and reside (along with several of his French-born successors) in Avignon.
What attracted me to Avignon, however, was not any of these things in particular, but the overall unexpected energy of the place. For some reason, the moment I jumped off the train in this new city at 9pm I felt oddly revitalised. I usually would be getting tired by about this time and couldn't be bothered doing anything, instead here I was keen to drop my stuff at the camping ground/hostel and begin exploring as the sun set. Turns out that from this point on up until now as I write this, I have a renewed vitality about my days. Strange. But not at all unwelcome!
After walking around much of the city's walled perimeter and many of the interior streets, I ventured across the river to Avignon's picturesque sister-city known as Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. This is where many bishops associated with the papal court built their massive residences, despite it being an area under French rule as opposed to papal rule. Nowadays, it remains a fairly quiet residential area but retains a very medieval feel with crumbling stone buildings winding up the hill towards a huge fortress-like monastery.
That evening, I bumped into a Luxembourgish couple (how many people can say that?) and we spent the evening at the local Irish pub chatting about anything and everything - they were a good laugh! The next day was fairly uneventful except for a visit to the Musée Lapidaire, which houses one of the most interesting collections of ancient Roman and Egyptian artifacts I have seen, again that could be partly due to my enhanced mood as of late. I watched the sunset over the river and pont d'Avignon on this night.
During my last day here I decided to check out the interior of the colossal gothic Palais des Papes (popes' palace) within the city's walls. It was constructed during the 1300s and the inside was apparently decorated with amazing tapestries, carpets, stained-glass windows, etc. None of these adornments are present today, however, as they were all either pillaged or destroyed in the many fires that ripped through the building over the centuries, and this made for a much less absorbing visit, although the grand scale of the rooms and building itself was quite exceptional. One intriguing thing I learnt was that every time a papal conclave was required, they would actually knock down a few of the walls of this building to make more room for the popes during their time of isolation - afterwards the walls would be resealed and everything would be back to business as usual.. A lot of effort for the sake of a few days in my opinion..
The rest of my afternoon was spent lounging in one of the parks, observing the (fairly unsuccessful) courting ritual of pigeons, before heading back to the hostel and finding myself in with a group of 10 other Aussies, chatting general crap and drinking beers as we do. I stayed my final night in Avignon with another CSer, Sabina, who had quite limited knowledge of English and we used this to our advantage by turning the evening into a massive language lesson for both of us. She is a lovely person and I was a little sad we didn't get a chance to spend more time together as I left early the next morning for my last overland train in France...

Last stop: Lyon!

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