I shared pictures from Palais des Papes, papal seat, and now I am sharing pictures from my walk through Avignon. It is a lovely city, well worth visiting. Besides the gorgeous papal palace, which is an important building for historical reasons, there are many more interesting attractions to see in Avignon.
Remparts d’Avignon are the first thing you see if you arrive in Avignon by train, like we did. These towers and huge walls were built during the 14th century, at the same time the papal palace was built. They have been repaired throughout their history. It is impressive to see as they are bigger than I was expected, because they were kept in good condition and rebuilt.
Espace Saint Martial is a lovely garden on the way from the train station to the city centre. It houses this unexpected British red telephone box, used as a swap library.
Square in front of the Palais des Papes, seen from above. I imagine in the evenings it is a very special place to sit and eat something or have drinks.
Avignon Cathedral is just besides the palace, which is more clear in the picture below. It can be visited free of charge, so it is worth spending a few minutes having a look around.
Basilique Saint-Pierre is another beautiful church, which I only saw from outside. I was very impressed by the door, see details in the picture below.
Pont d’Avignon was another attraction we wanted to see. Technically its name is Pont Saint-Bénézet, but it is better known as
Pont d’Avignon. Now only 4 arches, out of 22, survive from the bridge. It is hard to show in pictures while on the bridge that it is a bridge going over the river, but not crossing the river. As it is a children’s song about it – Sur le pont d’Avignon – we heard a few children sung it. It is similar to the “London Bridge is going down” song.
The first bridge over Rhône was built in the 12th century, a wooden structure. Bénezet was a teenager when he envisaged a new, stone bridge, and there is a legend about him in the 14th century.
There is a museum covering the history of the place before visitors can go on the bridge.
There are a lot of beautiful and unique buildings in the city.
Streets are narrow and beautiful, it is lovely just to walk around the city. But there are some attractions which should be visited, such as the palace and the bridge.
There are some shops which aim to sell to tourists. They are so cute and they offer interesting and useful mementos from this wonderful city.
Such lovely photos! I think my favorite is the walkway under the wall covered in ivy. I smiled at the British telephone box. We have one on our town square that is also used as a book swap.
I like how these telephone boxes are everywhere. It must have been a bit difficult to get one to all the way to US.
ps. The commentluv should work now, thanks for telling me about it.