Florida Coalcracker Chronicles: Avignon France - The Walled City That Was The "Vatican" For 100 Years

Thursday, August 12, 2021

Avignon France - The Walled City That Was The "Vatican" For 100 Years

The Pope's Palace in Avignon France

450 miles - 3 hours - by train

Yesterday we left Paris by high speed train to spent 10 days in the South of France. It took 3 hours and 450 miles before we arrived in Avignon. The weather mainly is a big change - we went from 65 and cloudy in Paris - to 95 degrees - 33% humidity - and a beautiful clear blue dome sky. As they say - it is a dry heat.

We rented a nice apartment with pool inside the city's enclosed walls. I will do a separate story about this AirBnB. It is very nice - 3 BR - 2 BA - 3rd and 4th floor - with a roof top terrace with a private pool. The building is hundreds of years old - but the renovation is recent and beautiful. It has a wonderful kitchen/dining room/living room with a fireplace. There are spiral steps going up to a loft on the 4th floor. Lulu and I have a master suite with our own bathroom.

Avignon has 90,000 people - but only 16,000 people live inside the original downtown wall. It is on the Rhone River close to where it enters the Mediterranean Sea. There is a special climate category called the Mediterranean Climate. It is similar to Los Angeles without the smog. This city has been occupied since 300 AD. It has been occupied by the Phoenicians - Romans - Arabs - Greeks. In the 1300s - the popes lived here. In 1377 - when the Pope chose to move back to Rome - a new Pope was elected to stay here for another 28 years. Things were not always perfect in the Catholic Church. It was a battle of the network popes.

The downtown plaza inside the wall is really beautiful. It has theaters - city hall - hotels - museums - and lots of restaurants. Food prices are much better than back in Paris. We make 2 meals a day in the apartment - and eat one meal out.

Today we took a tram tour that went up into the castle and downtown through the narrowest of alleys.

This is day 46 of 60 of our EuroTour 2021. We have been informed that we can now travel into London and not be required to be quarantined. We will have to show our Covid Passport - and get a covid test before and after the trip. We love London because Lulu taught there for 10 summers for FSU. Our tickets to go home from Paris are for August 29th. We can change them - but we plan to hit that target. We want to be home for the Notre Dame at Florida State football game on September 5th.